After Trump withdrew his troops from Syria and continued to urge South Korea to increase its military spending, skepticism quickly increased in Seoul.

"Trump factor risk" is the term Senator Won Yoo-chul used to describe the risk of having to get up in the middle of the night because the US President suddenly announced his withdrawal from Korea on Twitter. The concern grew after Trump asked Seoul to increase the "protection fee" by five times for US troops stationed in South Korea.

Not only Korea has this feeling. The surprise decision from the Trump administration to withdraw soldiers from the Syrian border area, abandoning the Kurds, an important ally in the fight against the Islamic State (IS), has eroded trust placed in the country. The United States and its commitment to other allies, from Israel to the Baltic states.

"If the United States suddenly withdraws its troops, our nuclear umbrella will disappear," Won said. "What will happen to the safety of the Korean people?"

Won and opposition lawmaker Baek Seung-joo in September called on Korea to come up with a new nuclear strategy, proposing the arrangement of nuclear weapons in the country under the joint command of US and South Korean forces. , like the countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) share US nuclear weapons.

Others have gone even further, re-thinking the idea that Korea will have to develop its own nuclear deterrent.

"President Trump is the most unpredictable leader in the world," Baek said. "I was nervous hearing Trump's words when he announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria."

For the past two years, Trump has said South Korea is "a rich country" but has not paid the full cost of the 28,500 US troops stationed on the peninsula.

After the first summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore in 2018, Trump announced "at some point" that he would bring US troops in South Korea home and called for an end to the drills. joint "provocative" and "very expensive" between Washington and Seoul.

Although senior officials have tried to convince Trump that the presence of US troops in South Korea serves greater strategic interests, the White House boss, in the words of the US State Department, still asserted "Korea. can obviously and should contribute more "to security costs.

Trump supporters think he makes sense. By 2010, South Korea had paid more than half of the daily expenses for the U.S. military's presence, including salaries and other logistics costs, but by 2018, the proportion had fallen to 41%.

But South Korea argued that it provided free land to the United States to build bases, spending billions of dollars a year on buying American military equipment and contributing 92% of the $ 10.7 billion in moving bases costs. The main US military is out of Seoul to the Humphrey Camp in Pyeongtaek, about 65 km south of the capital.

Last year, South Korea refused to increase the percentage of required security cost contribution from the US. In February this year, they agreed to increase the contribution by 8.2%, reaching about 900 million USD. But the deal is only valid for one year, not five years as usual.

But this time, the Trump administration is determined to get what it wants. They asked South Korea to raise the donation five times, which means Seoul must spend $ 2.2 billion on operating and maintenance budgets, and another $ 2 billion on staff salaries operating on US bases. .

Polls show that most Koreans support the alliance and the presence of US troops, but few think Seoul should spend more to receive protection from Washington. A panel of ruling party parliamentarians said last month it would oppose parliamentary approval of any "unfair" and unacceptable deal with South Koreans.

Both the United States and South Korea have long described the relationship between the two countries as "built from blood" after the two sides fought in the Korean War 1950 - 1953. But according to Senators Won and Baek , this traditional ally is weakening as Trump relentlessly focuses on money.

"US forces in Korea are not mercenaries," Won said.

Victor Cha, a senior adviser to North Korea under US President George W. Bush, now working at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), has warned of a scenario where Trump accepts a county deal. bad for North Korea to declare "great victory" and decide that the US does not need to deploy too many soldiers in South Korea.

The toughening of national security adviser John Bolton has made this scenario more likely, he said. "And then the cost-sharing agreement between the US and South Korea failed. A perfect storm would last until Trump said 'Okay, I made a deal with North Korea and you don't want to pay, so I will withdraw all or part of my troops back home. "

The US Defense Authorization Act has a condition that the number of US troops in South Korea can only be cut below 22,000 when the secretary of defense confirms that this step "does not significantly affect the security of the US allies in the region "and that allies were consulted. In that case, the biggest hope to help prevent a massive withdrawal could lie in Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, experts said.

Concerns over Trump's commitment to defend South Korea grew this year after he said Pyongyang's repeated test of ballistic missiles was not serious, even though the North's weapons reviewer was designed. Specially designed to evade the Korean missile defense system.

But tensions in the US-Korea alliance not only arise from the White House.

General Vincent Brooks, former commander of US forces in South Korea, noted that "a wave of progressive nationalism is growing rapidly" in South Korea, when many believe that they should not be "too attached or depends on the United States for security, both for defense and economy. "

The trend is present within the government of President Moon Jae-in, who in August angered Washington for withdrawing from the treaty to share military intelligence with Japan.

As a result, the defense cost-sharing talks have "more political costs" than before, with direct participation from both the White House and the Blue House (the presidential government), Brooks said. .

According to him, the cohesion of the US-Korea alliance is still strong, but doubts are emerging.

Moon Chung-in, South Korea's president's special adviser on foreign affairs and security, said many South Koreans are worried that Washington is not making a real effort to resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula, while still demanding that Seoul pay the cost of maintaining troops and buying additional US military equipment.

"In other words, the reputation of the Americans is declining. The US is demanding more money and the Korean people are uncomfortable. They will surely have deep doubts about the US motives," Moon stressed.