Harris "South Korea already contributes significant contributions..."Reaffirm your ironclad defense pledge"

Ahead of the U.S. presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris called the South Korea-U.S. alliance a key pillar of security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and around the world, evaluating that South Korea is already paying a significant share of defense costs.

In a special note to Yonhap News, Vice President Harris said, "We will protect the freedom and global leadership of the United States."

"I reaffirmed the ironclad U.S. commitment to defend South Korea during my visit to the Demilitarized Zone in 2022," Vice President Harris said in an article. "I know that the South Korea-U.S. alliance has been a key pillar of security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and around the world."

"Even though South Korea is already paying significant contributions, former President Trump is disparaging the South Korea-U.S. alliance and downplaying the U.S. position in the Indo-Pacific by demanding that South Korea pay $10 billion a year for the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea," he criticized.

In a meeting with Bloomberg News on the 15th, former President Trump also called South Korea a "money machine" meaning a rich country, saying that if he were in the White House, South Korea would spend $10 billion a year on the cost of stationing U.S. troops in South Korea.

Trump's claim of $10 billion a year is nearly nine times the amount South Korea will pay in 2026.

Harris also said that during the Korean War, more than 36,000 Americans and 137,000 South Korean troops sacrificed their lives fighting together to defend freedom, and promised to value the bond as they commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Korea-U.S. alliance during President Yoon Suk Yeol's state visit to the U.S. last year.