President Trump announced Sunday that he has ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, saying that the country recently declined to join the U.S. effort to denuclearize Iran.
Mr. Trump said on his Truth Social platform that the exercises are costly and they “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which has been “unthreatening and respectful” as long as he has been president.
“Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea,” Mr. Trump said.
The president said “it is too late to cancel” the joint military exercises, adding that he ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” them.
Mr. Trump also said that he “recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and the country declined.
However, he said his decision to reduce military partnership with South Korea is “somewhat unrelated.”
The 11 days of exercises involving 18,000 South Korean soldiers were designed to beef up readiness against North Korean threats.
North Korea on Friday threatened unspecified stern steps against the U.S. and South Korea, describing their military drills as a “a rehearsal for an aggressive war” that are triggering greater instability in the region.
The warning was typical of the harsh rhetoric that North Korea often deploys ahead of major U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Experts say North Korea has often used its rivals’ drills as a pretext to ramp up testing activities to expand its weapons arsenal and promote public support for leader Kim Jong Un.
U.S. and South Korean forces were expected to practice joint operations in complex scenarios, including a live-fire exercise to test joint precision targeting and maneuver, a wet gap crossing, and distribution of prepositioned military equipment, according to the U.S. military.
The U.S. military has said the exercise “reinforces the role of the alliance as the linchpin for regional peace and security” and reaffirms “the ironclad commitment between the United States and the Republic of Korea to defend their homelands.”
Mr. Trump met with the reclusive North Korean leader three times during his first term to discuss the country’s nuclear program, most recently in 2019. “I believe North Korea has tremendous potential,” Mr. Trump said at the time.
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has expressed interest in continuing those discussions.
His announcement came a day after he posted a photo of himself standing next to North Korea’s Kim, writing that the two leaders get along great “despite the unfriendly look on this particular picture.”
This is not the first time that Mr. Trump has sought to end the exercises. During his first term, he also issued a surprise announcement that called the war games “provocative.”
“We will be stopping the war games, which will save us a tremendous amount of money, unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should,” Mr. Trump told reporters after his 2018 meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore.
