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Bloomberg
The US military has begun issuing furlough warnings to almost 9,000 civilian South Korean employees, as Washington and Seoul remain at loggerheads over President Donald Trump’s demand its ally pay more money for its hosting of American troops.
The notices inform workers at American military facilities in South Korea that they potentially face administrative furloughs as of April 1, according to a statement issued on Wednesday by US Forces Korea (USFK).
The two sides remain deadlocked, although US officials have indicated they’ve backed off Trump’s initial demand that South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in’s government pay about $5 billion a year for US forces stationed there. That’s more than five times the $900 million in a stopgap one-year agreement that expired on December 31. South Korea has said there is quite “a big difference in principle†between the two sides.
“Without the Republic of Korea’s continued commitment to share the cost of employing our Korean National workforce, USFK will soon exhaust programmed funds available to pay their salaries and wages,†the notice said.
Trump’s push for South Korea to contribute much more money for what is known as the Special Measures Agreement has put the alliance under strain at a time when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s regime has said it would no longer be bound by its previous promise to halt testing of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.
The union for the South Korean workers has said that operations at the bases would be completely paralysed if there were massive furloughs.
Workers to be directly impacted by such notices have offered to work without pay out of concern over how the situation could harm South Korea’s national defense, according to Son Gi-o, a representative of the US Forces Korea Employees Union.