U.S. demanded Japan pay $8 bil annually for troops: Bolton
23 June, 2020
AMERICA demanded this past year that Japan pay $8 billion annually as expenses to sponsor American troops, a lot more than four times the current amount Tokyo shoulders, former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton says in his fresh book.
During his trip to Japan in July 2019, Bolton conveyed U.S. President Donald Trump's demand to a senior Japanese authorities official, according to the book to be released Tuesday. Kyodo Media obtained a backup before it hits bookshelves.
The book also revealed that Trump urged Bolton to use the risk of pulling U.S. troops out of Japan as leverage in negotiations on host-nation support.
Despite having built a rapport with Japanese Primary Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump has criticized bilateral obligations beneath the decades-older bilateral security alliance as one-sided and unfair.
Under the long-standing alliance, Japan may make payments as host-country support for U.S. troops stationed on the archipelago.
Bolton met with Shotaro Yachi, Abe's national reliability adviser who then led the secretariat for the National Reliability Council, and explained as to why Trump wanted the $8 billion, according to the book.
Bolton said when he returned to Washington and briefed Trump, the president said, while also discussing a demand for $5 billion in host-country support from South Korea, that "the way to get the $8 and $5 billion gross annual payments, respectively, was first to threaten to withdraw all U.S. forces."
"That places you in an exceedingly strong bargaining posture," Trump was quoted as telling Bolton.
Currently, there are over 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan and Tokyo allocated 197.4 billion yen (about $1.8 billion) in fiscal 2019 that ended in March and 199.3 billion yen in fiscal 2020 for hosting them.
Japan's top federal government spokesman denied that the U.S. part got urged Tokyo to shell out extra for the U.S. military.
"We are not engaged in bilateral negotiations at the moment," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga explained at a press meeting in Tokyo on Monday. "Therefore, it isn't true that the U.S. government has demanded an increase in payments for U.S. troops stationed in Japan."
As the existing five-year agreement on host-nation support is set to expire next March, america and Japan need to negotiate new terms in the coming a few months.
"This is a great time to be requesting the amount of money," Trump was quoted as saying in reference to the bottom payments, against a good backdrop of missile launches by North Korea.
Japan and South Korea are both longtime U.S. allies in Asia where China's flexing of its military lean muscle and North Korea's nuclear and missile development have raised the need for trilateral cooperation.
The Trump administration has been wanting to block the publication of the book "THE AREA Where IT JUST HAPPENED: A White Residence Memoir" by Bolton, who was simply ousted previous September by the president amid disagreements over Afghan peace talks.
Source: japantoday.com