December20, 2006: South Korea is increasing, by 6.6 percent, the amount of money it pays towards the costs of American troops being stationed in South Korea. There are currently about 30,000 American troops there, and it costs the United States about $3.5 billion a year. Next year, South Korea will pay $790 million to help defray those costs. American troops have been in South Korea for over 60 years, since the end of World War II in 1945. The troops are there to help protect South Korea from any other attack by North Korea (whose 1950 invasion led to a three year war, and a 53 year old ceasefire.) As South Korea's economy has boomed, payments to defray the expense of U.S. troops was begun, in 1991, and have been increasing. The 1991 payment was $150 million.

Such payments were first seen in Germany and Japan, where the U.S. urged those nations to help cover the cost of having American troops there to help defend them during the Cold War. Those payments continue, because the U.S. forces are also a major contributor to the local economy.