“The Secretary of Defense reexamines the posture of the US military around the world…
Suspension of relocation of US troops to Korea during the review process”
“The United States is back. Diplomacy has come to the center”
US President Joe Biden gives a speech on foreign policy at the State Department building on the 4th (local time). Washington/AP Yonhap News
US President Joe Biden announced on the 4th (local time) that he would freeze the relocation of US troops stationed in Germany, as ordered by former President Donald Trump. President Biden visited the State Department on his first visit to the ministry after taking office on the same day, and in a speech he said, “The United States is back,” expressed the stance of the new government’s foreign policy. He described steps to reverse the major policies of the Trump era. President Biden said, “Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will reconsider the posture of US troops around the world,” said President Biden. “We will freeze any relocation of troops from Germany during the review process.” This means that we will overturn the representative policy of treating the alliance as an object of financial transactions by leveraging the reduction of US troops stationed abroad during the Trump era. Trump criticized Germany by mobilizing the expression “a debtor country” for low defense spending, and announced in July last year that it would reduce the number of US troops in Korea from 36,000 to 24,000. The plan was to relocate 5600 to Belgium and Italy in Europe, and to return 6,400 to the United States. At that time, the Trump administration announced the plan to reduce the US troops in Germany without even explaining it to Germany, which drew a backlash from allies in Europe including Germany. The decision to halt the reduction of US troops in Germany can be seen as a tangible measure of President Biden’s pledge of’recovering alliance’. In the case of the USFK with a capacity of 28,500, the Trump administration has never actually ordered a reduction, and President Biden did not mention USFK on that day. In Trump’s days, there was concern that the USFK reduction card could be drawn out in conjunction with the defense cost sharing negotiations, but it is generally observed that the possibility of the USFK reduction card reviving immediately in the Biden government, which values cooperation with the alliance, is reduced. However, the possibility that the USFK will also be affected in the long term cannot be excluded according to the results of the US military’s global posture review. In a speech at the State Department, President Biden also announced that he would end logistics and military support for Saudi Arabia, which is waging war in Yemen. This also overturns the Trump administration’s policy. President Biden has also withheld the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, which Trump ordered. President Biden also said he is signing an executive order to raise the refugee limit to 125,000 per year to restore the US refugee program. Trump has reduced the refugee limit to 15,000 per year, but President Biden is raising it significantly. President Biden also said of Russia that “I made it clear to President Vladimir Putin that I would be very different from my predecessor.” He also criticized the arrest of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalni as “a deep concern for us and the international community.” President Biden said in a speech at the State Department that day, “The United States is back. Diplomacy has returned to the center,” he said. “We will rebuild the alliance and re-engage with the world to take on enormous challenges such as pandemic and global warming.” “The US alliance is one of our greatest assets,” he said. “To be led by diplomacy means once again being shoulder to shoulder with the alliance, key partners, and engaging diplomatically with enemies and competitors.” Washington/Hwang Jun-beom correspondent [email protected]