[2018-04-12]
“America First” has set the US on a collision course with its close allies.
The US administration recently announced a new decision to raise its tariffs on imported goods, including its ally Japan in the hit list.
Japan expressed strong dissatisfaction with it and local media are also denouncing it as a disgraceful behaviour that does not exclude even allies and a strong blast that causes a great upheaval in its economy and demanding the US refrain from breaking the international order of free trade.
This notwithstanding, the US tries in every way to net more profits from Japan.
According to experts’ analysis, the US imposing high tariffs on Japan is largely designed to gain concessions from it to sell latest military hardware and make it cover all the expenses for the US military bases in Japan.
South Korea is also a scapegoat for “America First.”
MBC reported on April 2 that the US president claimed his country is not paid properly for its military presence in south Korea, arguing it is as absurd as an assaulter or a thief forces the victim to pay money for what they did.
According to the south Korea-US “mutual defence treaty” concluded in 1953, the US sets up military bases in any place they want at will and uses them free of charge. It receives preferential treatment worth $2 billion from south Korea including the free offer of over 70 million phyongs of land, reduction and exemption from all kinds of public rates and taxes and exemption from road and port charges. And the US forces in south Korea enjoy inviolable rights and extraterritoriality free from any punishment, while committing all kinds of crimes against the local people such as violence, robbery, murder and rape.
Besides, the US receives $800 million annually from south Korea as the GIs’ upkeep, the sum totalling no less than $14 billion from 1989 to 2015.
However, the US seeks to rake in more profits.
Facts prove “America First” is an inverted version of US hegemonism and greediness.
There is an old Korean saying, “All covet, all lost.”
A clash of interests between the US and its allies is unavoidable as long as the US seeks its own interests.
By Song Jong Ho PT
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