Hegseth visits South Korea for talks on U.S. troops, tour of DMZ border

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SEOUL (Reuters) -U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visits South Korea on Monday for talks expected to involve Washington’s goal of reshaping the role of U.S. troops in Korea and is also due to visit the DMZ border with North Korea.

The defence chiefs are scheduled to hold the annual Security Consultative Meeting on Tuesday, the highest-level forum where the two countries chart the course of their military alliance and South Korea’s defence against nuclear-armed North Korea.

South Korean Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back and Hegseth will discuss combined defence readiness against North Korea and cooperation on regional security and cyber and missile defence, the South’s Defence Ministry said.

The two are expected to discuss plans to respond to the “changing security environment and threats” by developing the alliance between the two countries, it said.

Washington is considering making the role of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea more flexible, with an eye on maintaining the balance of power in Asia amid concerns about Chinese activities in the South China Sea and around Taiwan.

U.S. officials have signalled a plan to make U.S. forces more flexible to potentially operate outside the Korean peninsula in response to a broader range of threats, such as defending Taiwan and checking China’s growing military reach.

South Korea has resisted the idea of shifting the role of U.S. troops, but has worked to grow its defence capabilities in the past 20 years, with the goal of being able to take on a wartime command of the combined U.S.-South Korean forces. South Korea has 450,000 troops.

SOUTH KOREA TO INCREASE DEFENCE BUDGET

South Korea plans the largest defence budget increase in years in 2026, partly to address U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that Washington’s allies pay more for the U.S. military presence in their countries.

Hegseth is expected to visit the Panmunjom truce village on the Demilitarized Zone border with North Korea, accompanied by South Korea’s Ahn.

On Monday, the top military officials of the two countries held their annual meeting on strategic and operational directions for the combined forces and shared the view that the regional security environment is “complex and unstable.”

The two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pledged cooperation with other allies and partners to maintain the security of the Indo-Pacific and deter potential threats, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Nuclear-armed North Korea has ignored overtures from Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung for dialogue and has dramatically advanced its missile and conventional military capabilities.

(Reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Stephen Coates and Michael Perry)