SEOUL—The U.S. and South Korea struck an agreement in principle over the costs of their military alliance, ending a monthslong dispute that had loomed over President Trump’s planned second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The two sides have agreed to a preliminary deal covering roughly 28,500 U.S. military personnel in South Korea, though the final details are being sorted out, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said. The previous agreement expired Dec. 31, though the two sides had until to April 15 to come to new terms.
“Both sides are committed to working out remaining technical issues as quickly as possible,” the State Department spokeswoman said. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
Under the agreement, Seoul is set to pay roughly $1 billion, according to South Korea’s semiofficial Yonhap News, representing a roughly 20% increase from previous payments.
Last year South Korea paid around $830 million to host U.S. forces, about half the overall cost. The Trump administration at one point asked the South Korean government increase its payments by 50%.
The impasse had chilled relations between Seoul and Washington as they encourage North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. South Korean lawmakers had warned that local staff members supporting U.S. military forces could be furloughed in coming weeks if the two sides failed to hash out a deal.
Security experts had wondered if the stalled negotiations would leave open the possibility that Mr. Trump could offer a troop reduction at his planned meeting with Mr. Kim late this month. Over the weekend, Mr. Trump said he would reveal the exact date and location of the summit with Mr. Kim during, or shortly before, his State of the Union address Tuesday.
The cost-sharing deal came a day before Stephen Biegun, Washington’s special envoy for North Korea affairs, is set to travel to Pyongyang to meet with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Hyok Chol. The two sides are expected to hold working-level talks for the next summit.
Mr. Biegun, in a speech last week at Stanford University, signaled the Trump administration is prepared to take steps to ease sanctions and settle longstanding disagreements “simultaneously and in parallel” with actions by Pyongyang to reduce and ultimately eliminate its nuclear arsenal. The U.S. has previously insisted that North Korea completely get rid of its nuclear weapons first.
In an interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” program Sunday, Mr. Trump repeated a complaint that maintaining U.S. forces in South Korea is “very expensive.”
The U.S.-South Korea cost-sharing deal, known as the Special Measures Arrangement, provides the financial backing for a military alliance between the two countries that stretches back nearly seven decades.
Write to Timothy W. Martin at timothy.martin@wsj.com and Andrew Jeong at andrew.jeong@wsj.com
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