Lee presses for faster return of former U.S. bases, calls for stronger self-reliant defense

President Lee Jae Myung criticized the slow pace of land returned from former U.S. military bases on Wednesday, saying the delay "defies common sense" given the roughly 10 trillion won ($7 billion) South Korea spent building Camp Humphreys for the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) to relocate to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi.

Lee's frustration centered on Camp Humphreys — the largest overseas U.S. base, at roughly 14.7 square kilometers — which South Korea funded so American forces could consolidate out of older installations across Seoul's Yongsan and northern Gyeonggi. While the relocation was completed in 2018, some of the older bases the United States had promised to vacate in exchange still haven't been returned, Lee said, or remain unusable even after being handed back.

"There's trust between nations, so we naturally believed they'd keep their promise, but you're not supposed to pay upfront like that," he said.

The comments came as the foreign, unification, defense and patriots and veterans affairs ministries delivered their second comprehensive policy report to Lee at the Blue House in central Seoul since his government took office last year.

Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said Washington "has been somewhat passive" in the talks.

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said his ministry had "been working together with the Defense Ministry" on the issue, and Lee told Cho to "push harder."

Lee tied the base dispute to a broader case for "self-reliant defense," warning against the kind of peacetime complacency that leaves a military technically equipped but effectively hollow when war actually comes.

He argued South Korea's armed forces should answer fully to their own defense minister and commander in chief — a reference to the long-pending transfer of wartime operational control, or Opcon, from the U.S.-led Combined Forces Command back to Seoul.

Lee struck a far more cautious note with Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, after Chung's own ministry floated using Joseon — a shortened version of the North's official name for itself — instead of "North Korea" as part of a broader push to soften hostile language toward Pyongyang.

"Calling both Koreas by their official names is something that has room for debate — I think we need to think this through carefully," Lee said, warning it could get "seized on and dragged into political strife."

Chung, who is also pushing to drop "principal enemy" from official usage, had floated a more assertive push for four-party talks with South Korea, North Korea, the United States and China ahead of November's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen.

That, too, met skepticism. 

Foreign Minister Cho called it "an idealistic hope" the ministries hadn't actually coordinated on.

Cho separately updated reporters on talks to revise the "123 agreement," the decades-old bilateral pact — named for the U.S. law that authorizes it — governing nuclear cooperation, which Seoul wants revised to let South Korea enrich and reprocess its own nuclear fuel.

Talks have stalled since May, largely because of the war in the Middle East, he said, with another high-level round expected "before long."

Seoul is separately studying a similar nuclear deal the United States signed with Saudi Arabia on July 23, Cho added. In his formal remarks to Lee, Cho tied the nuclear talks to a related priority of accelerating consultations on the fuel and other requirements South Korea needs to build its own nuclear-powered submarines, a project U.S. President Donald Trump agreed in principle to allow last year.

Asked about Coupang, the U.S.-listed retailer at the center of a monthslong dispute with Washington, Cho said the dispute would likely run long.

Seoul recalled its ambassador for consultations over the matter roughly three weeks ago.

The fight stems from Seoul's regulatory response to a 2025 data breach at the company, which a U.S. House Judiciary Committee report in July cast as evidence that South Korea discriminates against U.S. firms — a framing Seoul rejects.

Cho said the dispute won't affect the nuclear talks but that Seoul wants it resolved soon.

He also described his first sit-down with Michelle Steel, the new U.S. ambassador who presented a copy of her credentials, on Tuesday, as a friendly "get-to-know-you" session that didn't touch on Coupang or the pending security talks.

He did offer a lighter aside. After Steel's husband, Shawn Steel, a former California Republican Party chairman, joined her for the meeting — prompting Cho to joke, borrowing an English phrase, that Korea considered her arrival a “buy one, get one free.”

On China, Cho pushed back on the idea that ties have stalled since a January summit, and said Foreign Minister Wang Yi's expected visit to Seoul will raise North Korea, though he played down hopes for a major shift in Beijing's posture.

Chung, meanwhile, disclosed the Unification Ministry's pilot program to donate medical equipment to a hospital in the North's Kangdong County near Pyongyang. No agreement with the North exists yet, he said, but Seoul has already secured a sanctions exemption, the largest in a decade, covering roughly half the equipment needed out of an estimated 10 billion won in total.

BY SEO JI-EUN   [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]