No plans now to withdraw U.S. troops from S. Korea: Trump

February 4, 2019

Washington--The United States has no plans at the moment to withdraw its troops from South Korea, President Donald Trump has indicated in an interview with U.S. television network CBS.

"I have no plans, I've never even discussed removing them," Trump said in the interview, which was released on Sunday.

Trump apparently tried to ease concerns that he may make some concessions to Pyongyang, such as proposing scaling down the U.S. military presence in South Korea, at his second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, slated for late this month.

But Trump also said in the interview that keeping some 40,000 U.S. troops in South Korea is "very expensive," referring to a possible pullout in the future. "Maybe someday," he said.

Trump said that a specific date and location for his upcoming meeting with Kim is likely to be unveiled in his State of the Union address on Tuesday or shortly before.

Da Nang in central Vietnam is seen as a prime candidate site for the meeting, according to sources familiar with the matter. Trump and Kim met in Singapore in June 2018 for the first-ever U.S.-North Korea summit.

North Korea has a "chance to be one of the great economic countries in the world," Trump said.

But he added that Kim "can't do that with nuclear weapons and he can't do that on the path they're on now," underscoring the need for North Korea to denuclearize itself. Jiji Press