Trump slams South Korea's Moon but says he likes North Korea's Kim
24 April, 2021
Former US president Donald Trump on Friday (Apr 23) accused his South Korean counterpart of ripping off america, while continuing to highlight his supposed friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
"Kim Jong-un of North Korea, who I've gotten to know (and like) beneath the most trying of circumstances, never respected the existing President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in," Trump said in a statement.
"President Moon was weak as a leader and as a negotiator, except when it came to the continued, permanent military ripoff of the USA ... We were treated like fools for decades, however, I acquired them to pay vast amounts of dollars more for the military protection and services we render."
"The Biden Administration isn't even going to require the excess billions South Korea decided to pay us," Trump added, referring to current President Joe Biden.
During his presidency, Trump positioned himself as a lead negotiator in peace talks on the Korean peninsula.
He first met in June 2018 with Kim in Singapore, the first-ever summit between your countries still technically at war, and later said both leaders "fell in love."
The pair met twice more during Trump's amount of time in office, and North Korea held off on nuclear and missile tests - but analysts say Pyongyang has kept advancing its weapons programs.
In March, South Korea agreed to pay 13.9 % more toward the expense of the US troop existence on the peninsula, in a six-year deal resolving a concern that festered beneath the Trump administration.
The financial dispute had bedeviled the two allies' security alliance after Trump - who took a transactional method of foreign policy - repeatedly accused South Korea of freeloading.
Washington stations around 28,500 troops in South Korea to defend it from the nuclear-armed North Korea, as well concerning protect US interests in northeast Asia.
Beneath the new deal, Seoul has agreed to pay 1.18 trillion won (US$1.03 billion) for 2021, with gross annual increases thereafter associated with its defense budget.
The sum represents a 13.9 per cent increase on the roughly US$920 million Seoul was paying beneath the previous agreement, which expired in 2019 - but is a long way off from the Trump administration's initial demand of ZUS$5 billion a year.
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