Joseph Yun, chargé d'affaires ad interim at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, says the allies need to discuss “other costs” in their defense sharing, aside from the three areas covered by the Special Measures Agreement, and assess whether Seoul’s current spending is enough.

Yun made the remark during a seminar hosted by the Korea Press Foundation on Tuesday, listing the three areas of construction, labor and utility regarding the stationing of American troops on the Korean Peninsula.

The comment comes as the Donald Trump administration has called on America’s allies to cover a greater share of their own defense costs, suggesting that both its European and Asian allies, including Seoul, should pay five percent of their gross domestic product.

Yun’s remark appears to reflect Washington’s position that the two sides should discuss sharing the cost of deploying U.S. strategic assets to the region, beyond what they agreed to last October.

Under the latest five-year agreement effective through 2030, Seoul has agreed to pay one-point-52 trillion won, or around one-point-one billion U.S. dollars, next year, up eight-point-three percent from this year.

The U.S. diplomat also said Washington wants discussions to focus on modernizing alliances to face new strategic challenges, adding that talks could include readjusting U.S. military assets and the presence of U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan, with China being a primary strategic concern.