U.S. House Armed Services Committee deletes provision on banning reduction of USFK

The U.S. House Armed Services Committee unveiled the draft of National Defense Authorization Act for the new fiscal year in 2020, which includes plans to strengthen intelligence sharing with Korea on Monday and Tuesday on its website.

According to Voice of America on Tuesday, the six subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee drafted plans to promote intelligence sharing with third party countries including Korea, Japan and India.

The draft includes the approval for the construction of U.S. military bases, to be financed by Korea at 542.2 million U.S. dollars (some 639.2 billion won). It includes eight construction projects including Camp Humphrey (39.7 million dollars), Camp Carol (51 million dollars) and air bases in Gwangju, Gunsan and Suwon.

In the current draft, however, the provision on U.S. Forces in Korea, which was previously included in the title of the draft released by the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 23, was deleted. The draft by the Senate included a provision prohibiting the reduction of U.S. Forces below 28,500, which was deleted in the recently disclosed version. This was 6,500 more than the National Defense Authorization Act in fiscal year 2019, which prohibited the reduction for forces below 22,000. VOA added that the deleted provision could be included again based on Senate and House discussions. The House subcommittees will integrate the drafts, which will be voted next Wednesday.


Bo-Mi Im bom@donga.com