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| John Kirby |
Saying that Trump did not understand the "contours of our alliance with South Korea," the retired Admiral wrote in an opinion piece on CNN that Trump should not view the THAAD deployment as a real estate deal.
Referring to Trump's ambiguous price tag on the missile defense system, Kirby also said the THAAD deployment was not sold but deployed by U.S. forces in Korea.
"THAAD deployment is just that, a deployment. And like every other military deployment, while we may need the use of certain domestic facilities and physical sites, it's still our stuff and using it is still our responsibility," wrote Kirby. "It's not clear at all where the President got his $1 billion figure. That's about what the system costs us [United States.] to buy, but operating costs are much lower. And since we aren't selling it to anyone, it doesn't make much sense to slap a price tag on it."
He urged Trump not to view the deployment as a zero-sum game, but a deal to benefit the U.S. and its allies.
The missile defense system would make U.S. troops and families in Korea safer and South Korea safer, he said.
Kirby concluded that such deals were based on trust ― not cash ― and Trump had lost a lot of trust with one of its most important allies.
The opinion piece comes after Trump's repetitive claims that South Korea should pay for the missile defense system.
The claims have caused a severe backlash from Korean presidential candidates and the public, with some even arguing that the deployment should be scrapped.
Meanwhile, Korea's Ministry of Defense made it clear that it would not pay for the system.
A ministry official said the arrangement was that South Korea provided the site and related facilities under SOFA, and that the U.S. shouldered the burden of installing and operating it.
