Talk of US forces drawdown spooks Seoul ahead of presidential election

SEOUL - A report alleging that the United States plans to reduce its military presence in South Korea has sparked fears about what it means for Washington’s security commitments in the troubled Korean peninsula.

The Wall Street Journal, citing defence officials with knowledge of the matter, reported on May 22 that the idea is being floated as part of an informal review, which suggests the re-deployment of 4,500, or 16 per cent, of the 28,500 American troops based in South Korea to other parts of the Pacific, including to Guam.

The troops form the United States Forces Korea (USFK), a component of the joint US-Korean forces whose role is to maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.

While the report claims that such a plan has not yet reached US President Donald Trump’s desk, many see it as an extension of the Pentagon’s plans to focus on raising allies’ share of the burden of maintaining such joint forces and countering China threats in the Indo-Pacific as part of the wider “America First” vision. 

Both defence ministries have since come out on May 23 to deny the report, with Seoul saying that such plans had not been discussed. Washington, for its part, said that the US “remains firmly committed to the defence of South Korea” and looks forward to working with the next Korean administration. 

Nevertheless, the report has shaken many in Seoul, where the government has been hobbled in the past half year by the Dec 3, 2024, botched martial law declaration of then President Yoon Suk Yeol and his subsequent impeachment.

South Koreans

will head to the polls

on June 3 to pick a new leader after former president Yoon’s ouster on April 4.

Apart from domestic troubles, South Korea is also facing rising threats from an

increasingly aggressive and emboldened North Korea

, while trying to navigate unsure relations with the second Trump administration. 

Given the timing of the revelation, Dr Doo Jin-ho, a principal research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses, said the move seems “intended to set the stage for defence cost-sharing negotiations for South Korea’s new administration”, which is expected to take office after the June 3 election.

Mr Trump himself, before and after taking office for the second time, has repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction with the defence cost-sharing of the USFK with “money machine” Seoul, threatening to up the latter’s annual contribution of 1.52 trillion won (S$1.39 billion) to US$10 billion (S$12.86 billion) a year, from 2026.

In a Truth Social post on April 8, the President also said that he expected the cost-sharing to be part of the ongoing tariff talks between the two countries, but South Korea has thus far managed to dodge the bullet. 

But the talk about troop withdrawal may not be simply about cost-sharing, analysts warn. 

“While it’s easy for Seoul to dismiss this as Washington’s latest veiled threat to pressure South Koreans into paying more for defence cost-sharing, I believe Washington is redrawing the broader strategic map in the region and South Korea should heed the writing on the wall,” Dr Lee Seong-Hyon, a senior fellow at the Washington-based George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, told The Straits Times. 

The withdrawal of “such a sizeable number of troops” can be seen as Washington downgrading South Korea’s role vis-a-vis China, added Dr Lee.

The US has been gradually strengthening its military powers in the Indo-Pacific region, including in Guam, as a deterrence to China, its strategic rival in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

In 2024, the US added four military bases in the Philippines, bringing the total number of bases there to nine, and also installed an intermediate range missile launch system in the South-east Asian country.

A US-Japan agreement signed in 2006 will also see 4,000 US marines currently stationed in Okinawa re-deployed by 2028 to Guam, a US island territory located in the western Pacific. 

Dr Bence Nemeth of the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London said that Guam’s location is advantageous in that it is “far enough from the Korean peninsula to be less vulnerable to Chinese missile attacks, yet close enough to allow rapid deployment of forces in a crisis”.

Guam is roughly equidistant from Tokyo and Manila, both US allies, with each being around 2,500km away. Seoul is slightly farther away at 3,200km.

But Dr Nemeth pointed out that “for contingencies specific to the Korean peninsula, forces stationed in Guam would function as reinforcements rather than as a standing deterrent”.

Dr Lee believes that such a repositioning of the US defence line means that the Trump administration is clearly prioritising the US-China rivalry while leaving South Korea to assume greater responsibility for the North Korean threat. 

US troops have been stationed in South Korea ever since the signing of a mutual defence treaty in 1953, after the Korean War ended the same year in an armistice. 

While the number of troops has fluctuated over the years, the current figure of 28,500 has been maintained since 2008, as it was agreed then that this was a level necessary to contain the North Korean threat. 

The USFK carries out regular military drills across all domains, with the most recent one in March prompting North Korea to denounce it as a “deliberate and provocative nuclear war rehearsal”, and to launch several short-range ballistic missiles into the Yellow Sea.

Tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang have escalated to new heights since January 2024, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared that reunification of the two countries was “impossible”, and designated South Korea as his country’s “principal enemy”.

Pyongyang went on to sign a strategic partnership agreement with Moscow in June 2024, and dispatched its troops to fight alongside Russian soldiers in the Ukraine conflict a few months later, in exchange for cash, supplies and Russian technological aid.

Buoyed by the partnership, North Korea has been flexing its military muscle in recent months, showing off new air-to-air missiles and a nuclear submarine, before its failed warship launch of May 21.

Describing North Korea’s moves as “military adventurism”, Dr Doo warned that the possible drawdown of USFK troops could potentially send a wrong message to the North and weaken the combined defence posture. 

Dr Nemeth feels that of more concern would be “the political and psychological consequences” of such a move.

“It casts doubt on whether the United States would respond swiftly and decisively in a future crisis, especially if its strategic focus shifts more fully towards China,” he said.