It appears that the next year's U.S. National defense Authorization Act (NDAA) bill, which recently passed the House of Representatives, includes a recommendation to maintain the current size of U.S. Forces Korea.
According to the U.S. Congress bill information site on the 29th (local time), the NDAA bill for fiscal year 2026 (October 2025–September 2026), which passed the House floor on 10th, includes a provision to "maintain the stationing of about 28,500 U.S. troops in Korea."
The bill said, "It is the sense of Congress that the U.S. Secretary of National defense should continue efforts to strengthen U.S. security alliances and partnerships to expand the United States' comparative advantage in strategic competition with China in the Indo-Pacific region."
The bill went on to specify that "such efforts include strengthening the alliance with Korea, including ▲ maintaining the stationing of about 28,500 U.S. troops deployed to Korea, ▲ enhancing mutually based defense cooperation, and ▲ reaffirming the commitment to provide extended deterrence by employing the full range of U.S. defense capabilities under the Republic of Korea–U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty."
This is identical to the text of the current NDAA for 2025, which passed the U.S. Congress in December last year.
The NDAA is a law that annually authorizes the Ministry of National Defense's budget expenditure and policies, and during fiscal years 2019–2021 under the first Trump administration, Congress specified the size of U.S. Forces Korea in the NDAA bill and stipulated that the budget could not be used for reducing U.S. Forces Korea.
However, starting in fiscal year 2022, Congress deleted from the NDAA bill the provision that prohibited using the budget for reducing U.S. Forces Korea, and it has expressed support for the stationing of U.S. Forces Korea by specifying the current size. Although it does not provide collateral for enforceability, it is interpreted as congressional support for maintaining the status quo.
The NDAA bill is handled separately in the Senate and the House; if there are differences between the two, a single conference version is produced and reapproved, after which the president signs it to finalize it into law.
Previously, the Senate's NDAA bill for fiscal year 2026, which passed the Senate Armed Services Committee in Jul., included a directive for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Indo-Pacific commander, and the U.S. Forces Korea commander to conduct an independent assessment of the risks associated with reducing U.S. Forces Korea or transferring wartime operational control.