Trump Asked If He Will Reduce Number Of American Troops Stationed In South Korea

During a press briefing on Monday, President Trump was asked about a reduction of US troops stationed in South Korea.

Transcript

00:00Would you reduce the number of forces in South Korea so that the United States can have more

00:06flexibility in the region? Would you consider reducing the number of U.S. forces in South

00:12Korea so that the United States can have more flexibility? Well, I would say that now because

00:15we've been friends and we're friends. And look, we have a lot of people over there. We have over

00:2040,000 troops in South Korea. As you know, South Korea agreed to pay for that during my last term.

00:27And then when Biden came in, they complained to Biden that I wasn't a nice person. And he agreed

00:32not to pay. He gave up billions of dollars. We were getting paid billions of dollars. But then

00:38Biden ended that for whatever reason. It's unbelievable that he did. But we have a very

00:45good relationship militarily. They would say, but we gave you land. I said, no, you didn't. You lease

00:51us land. There's a big difference between giving and leasing. And maybe one of the things I'd like

00:56to do is ask them to give us ownership of the land where we have the big fort. You know,

01:01we spent a lot of money building a fort. And there was a contribution made by South Korea.

01:05But I would like to see if we could get rid of the lease and get ownership of the land

01:10where we have a massive military base.