President Donald Trump has told the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea that commenced earlier this week, citing his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the financial burden of the drills.
Decision announced on social media
The president announced the move in a Truth Social post, saying he made the decision because of his “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un” and describing North Korea as “unthreatening and respectful.” He also criticised South Korea for declining assistance to the United States in efforts to denuclearise Iran. The comments were carried in media reports.
“very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,”
It was not immediately clear what specific measures the reduction would involve. South Korea’s Defence Ministry told The Associated Press that the drills had started on Monday local time as planned.
Longstanding exercises and their purpose
According to reporting by The New York Times, the two countries have held joint military exercises for more than 70 years. The drills are designed to maintain the readiness of US and South Korean forces to respond to North Korean military activity and weapons development.
American and South Korean training programmes typically include a mix of field exercises, command-post drills and combined operations designed to ensure interoperability. The exercises scheduled this week were expected to last 11 days and to involve about 18,000 South Korean soldiers, The Associated Press reported.
| Planned duration | Reported South Korean personnel |
|---|---|
| 11 days | 18,000 |
North Korea reaction and regional context
State media in Pyongyang described the exercises, in a statement carried on Friday, as “a rehearsal for an aggressive war.” Experts who spoke to The Associated Press have previously suggested that North Korea has sometimes used such drills as a pretext to carry out weapons tests and to bolster domestic support for the regime.
In the days leading up to this week’s training, North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward the sea, a move reported by international media. Historical precedent also exists: in 2018, then-President Trump suspended exercises as part of denuclearisation talks with Pyongyang, the BBC has reported.
Unclear operational impact and diplomatic consequences
The White House comment that the drills were “hostile” to North Korea and costly to the United States was accompanied by the claim that it was too late to cancel the exercises outright, prompting an order to reduce them instead. Officials have not published details on which elements would be curtailed, and the Pentagon had not issued an immediate operational statement at the time of reporting.
Analysts say any alteration to combined training could have several consequences:
- Potential short-term de-escalation in rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang.
- Questions about alliance signalling to South Korea and regional partners.
- Opportunities for North Korea to exploit training pauses to conduct its own tests.
The balance between reassuring allies and seeking diplomatic engagement with adversaries is a recurrent challenge for US policy on the Korean peninsula. How the reduction is implemented—whether by limiting certain manoeuvres, trimming participating forces, or curtailing live-fire elements—will determine both military readiness and diplomatic reaction in Seoul, Tokyo and beyond.
For now, the announced reduction stands as a unilateral decision by the president conveyed on social media and reported by international news agencies, while South Korea maintains that the exercises began as scheduled.
