The 11 days of exercises involving 18,000 South Korean soldiers were designed to beef up readiness against North Korean threats, according to Associate Press. While “unhappy” that he previously agreed to the exercises, Trump instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to only reduce the exercises as it was too late to cancel.
Trump said that he made the decision because South Korea declined to help denuclearize Iran and that he has a good relationship with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. He claimed on Truth Social that going through with the exercises would send a signal to North Korea — one that is “totally inappropriate and hostile,” especially they have been “unthreatening” and “respectful” during his time in office.
North Korea had threatened “unspecified stern steps” toward the U.S. and South Korea because of the military drills. However, the warnings are noted as typical harsh rhetoric — describing the drills as “a rehearsal for an aggressive war” — when the other two countries engage in major military exercises.
Apparently, this is not the first time Trump has back out training exercises with South Korea because of threats from their northern neighbors, as he back out of the war games in 2018.
Gordon Chang is a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America.
"We have seen increasingly provocative activities from the North Koreans recently, so we should be scaling up our joint exercises with South Korea, not scaling them down,” Chang says. “The president's decision was wrong."
However, he does point out that South Korea is headed in the wrong direction.
"President Jae Myung is pro-China, pro-North Korea, anti-US. He seized power. He is taking down the institutions of democracy. South Korea is heading to perhaps communism as well,” Chang states. “The people of South Korea, though, stand in his way, especially the young, because they support the alliance with the US. They support freedom and democracy, but unfortunately, leftists now rule South Korea."
