WASHINGTON– The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a bill on the defense budget for the fiscal year 2022 that calls on the U.S. government to maintain the troop level of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) at the current level.
The National Defense Authorization Act passed the Senate in a 89-10 vote.
While the bill requests US$768 billion in defense spending for the fiscal year 2022, it also seeks to call on the U.S. government to strengthen American alliances with countries in the Indo-Pacific region, including South Korea, to “further the comparative advantage of the United States in strategic competition with the People’s Republic of Korea.”
To that end, the bill urges the U.S. government to maintain “the presence of approximately 28,500 members of the United States Armed Forces deployed to the country, consistent with the Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Korea, in support of the shared objective of a peaceful and stable Korean Peninsula.”
The bill was passed by the House of Representatives last week.
The initial draft of the bill had sought to limit the U.S. government from using its defense spending to reduce the number of USFK troops, but such restrictions have been removed in the deliberation process.
U.S. Congress had identified a lower limit for USFK troop levels in its National Defense Authorization Acts for three consecutive years since 2019.
Rep. Adam Smith, chairman of the House armed services committee, earlier said the clause that had prohibited the use of the U.S. defense budget to reduce the number of USFK troops has been removed from the bill for the upcoming year simply because it is no longer needed.
Source: Yonhap News Agency