Trump orders Pentagon to curtail military exercises with ally South Korea
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
By HELENE COOPER
President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he had instructed the Pentagon to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally and a linchpin of America’s national security strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.
The announcement may heighten growing worries among Asian allies over what the United States is now willing to do to deter China, given the enormous distraction and resource drain of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. The United States is running low on critical weapons and has been moving military resources out of Asia to the Middle East.
In a convoluted social media post, Trump complained that South Korea did not “join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In the same post, he said that North Korea under Kim Jong Un had been “unthreatening and respectful” while he has been president.
In his post Trump did not mention a rift in relations in 2017, when the North Korean leader called him a “mentally deranged dotard” after Trump delivered a speech at the U.N. threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea if the United States had to defend itself or its allies.
Now Trump is speaking only of what he on Sunday called his “very good relationship” with North Korea and its leader. In his post, he said that because of those ties, he was “not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military exercises with South Korea.”
“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” Trump said in his post.
Trump said that because it was too late to cancel the exercises entirely, he had asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” U.S. participation.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries have held joint exercises for more than 70 years, since 1955, after the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.
The South Korean Defense Ministry confirmed that the joint military exercises had begun Monday as scheduled. In a statement last week, the allies emphasized that the 11-day annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises were “defensive in nature” and aimed at enhancing the countries’ readiness and capabilities by “incorporating realistic threats, including lessons learned from recent conflicts.”
But North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Friday had reiterated its condemnation of the drills, branding them “a rehearsal for an aggressive war.” In response, the country conducted two ballistic missile tests off its east coast this month, vowing to “respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent.”
It was unclear just how the Pentagon would scale back its role in the joint military exercises.
The exercises are held most summers with South Korea’s armed forces and with other U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region.
They focus on how the allied militaries can counter a wide range of security threats, including drones and cyberattacks, while also strengthening combined defenses. They are designed to help U.S. allies defend against threats from North Korea.
The Pentagon was taken aback by Trump’s sudden announcement, according to a senior U.S. military official. Just last week, an official with U.S. and South Korean Combined Forces Command told reporters that the exercises would simulate combat against North Korean troops, who have gained crucial experience while fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Col. Ryan Donald, director of public affairs for the Combined Forces Command, United Nations Command and U.S. Forces Korea, said in a news conference with the South Korean military last Monday that the exercises reflected the changing character of war, including the growing use of unmanned systems, electronic warfare and cyberoperations.
“DPRK soldiers have deployed and fought in Ukraine, and they’ve taken those lessons they’ve learned there and brought them back to North Korea,” he said at a news conference in South Korea. He was referring to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“That changes the DPRK capability, and our training accounts for that threat,” he said.
The exercises are supposed to include 18,000 South Korean troops, as well as a number of U.S. troops who are already part of the 28,500 American service members stationed in South Korea.
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