Trump "Korea is Money Machine...If I'm in office, I'll have to pay 13 trillion won for defense."

Former President Donald Trump said that if he were in office, South Korea would pay $10 billion a year in defense contributions and about 13 trillion won in our money.

In a meeting hosted by the "Chicago Economic Club" on the 15th local time, former President Trump referred to South Korea as a "money machine" meaning a rich country and said if he was in office, South Korea would spend $10 billion a year on the cost of stationing U.S. troops in South Korea.

The remarks are interpreted as suggesting the possibility of demanding South Korea renegotiate its defense cost sharing if it succeeds in re-election in the U.S. presidential election next month.

Earlier this month, South Korea and the U.S. set an 8.3 percent increase in defense contributions to 1.519.2 trillion won in 2026, and reached an agreement to reflect the annual growth rate of the consumer price index in contributions by 2030.

Former President Trump also claimed that when he took power, he demanded South Korea pay $5 billion a year in defense contributions, but South Korea was reluctant to make him pay $2 billion and try to make it $5 billion again.

But in 2021, he claimed that the Joe Biden administration had reversed all of his agreements.