The South Korean government will shoulder a total of 920 billion won for maintaining the US Forces Korea this year. Based on this amount, South Korea and the U.S. will apply an annual increase rate of 4% or less until 2018. The two countries also agreed to improve the system in order to guarantee transparency in the expenses of these funds.

On January 12, South Korea and the U.S. announced the results of their ninth Special Military Agreement (SMA), which included these conditions. The agreement signed by the two countries will go into force after ratification from the National Assembly. The opposition party said, "It is a bad agreement without even a clear reason as to why the increase is necessary," and announced their plans to thoroughly pick apart the agreement during the parliamentary review; thus the path to ratification is expected to be rough.

The two allies agreed to improve the system to prevent appropriations and increase transparency in spending, and they signed a letter of exchange on system improvements which stipulated the details. In addition, they expanded monitoring capabilities by strengthening the procedure when reporting to the National Assembly in the process of budget formulation and settlement.

The South Korean government was able to improve previous shortcomings, which had allowed the U.S. to unilaterally compile and enforce the defense costs, and established a device to disclose some of the information through the National Assembly. The government has cited this as one of the most important achievements in the latest round of negotiations.

However, they have yet to resolve the issue of unspent funds and carryover which have been noted as problems in the past. Also, even if the U.S. engages in prior consultation with the South Korean government on the expense fields for the defense costs, they don't necessarily need our government's consent.

There is no means to enforce the conditions agreed upon in the case the U.S. fails to implement the agreement. South Korea will pay the U.S. 920 billion won for its share of the defense burden this year; this amount is 50 billion won (5.8%) more than its share of 869 billion won last year. The ninth agreement will be valid for five years until 2018. The consumer price index of the year before the previous year will be applied in the annual increase rate, but the increase rate cannot exceed a maximum of 4%.

South Korea's share of the defense cost has increased nine-fold in the past 23 years since the first agreement in 1991. The government's contribution to the US Forces Korea has increased much faster than the national defense budget, which increased 4.8-fold during the same period. In particular, the US Forces still have 738 billion won remaining in funds they have yet to spend, and with no specific factor for the increase, the government has once again increased the total burden. Thus the opposition party is strongly criticizing that the government “hoisted a white flag before the United States."

They also pointed out that the government simply accepted the U.S. request--intended to secure stable funding over a long period of time--and agreed to the five years during which this agreement will be valid. Bae Jae-jeong, spokesperson for the Democratic Party said, "We will question why the validity of the costs was not reflected when the agreement is reviewed for ratification at the National Assembly."

A government official said, "The latest agreement is the result after taking into account tensions on the Korean peninsula, while balancing the U.S. demand, our domestic situation, and the need to improve the system for the healthy development of the ROK-US alliance. The U.S. embassy in Korea also said that the negotiations between the two countries were successful." He added, "The two countries will continue to strengthen the alliance to form the core axis for peace and stability in the region."