Trump to cut US-South Korea military drills, citing Kim Jong Un relationship

President Trump announced on Sunday that the United States would substantially reduce its joint military exercises with South Korea, framing the decision around his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The timing was tight—Trump posted the announcement less than 24 hours before the annual drills were scheduled to begin on Monday, making it too late to cancel entirely. He characterized the exercises as costly, with much of the expense borne by the United States, and said they sent a signal that was "totally inappropriate and hostile."

The announcement also carried a secondary grievance. Trump noted that he had recently asked South Korea's president whether the country would join the United States in efforts to denuclearize Iran, and Seoul had declined. He seemed to link the two issues, suggesting that South Korea's unwillingness to support American operations in the Middle East factored into his thinking about the military drills on the peninsula.

The timing of the move was striking. Just hours before posting about reducing the exercises, Trump had shared an old photograph of himself and Kim Jong Un from 2019, describing them as great friends despite what he called the "unfriendly look" in the image. The posts painted a picture of a president prioritizing his personal relationship with the North Korean leader over the established military posture that has anchored the US-South Korea alliance for decades.

South Korea's government responded by saying the drills would proceed as scheduled. The exercises, called Ulchi Freedom Shield, were planned as an 11-day event involving about 18,000 South Korean soldiers, similar in scale to previous years. Military leaders from both countries had held a joint press conference the week before to announce the drills, noting that they accounted for emerging threats, including North Korean troops that had been deployed to support Russia's war in Ukraine. Roughly 28,500 American military personnel are stationed in South Korea.

Experts warned that scaling back the exercises carried real risks. Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, argued that the joint drills were essential for military readiness and alliance coordination. Reducing them could slow South Korea's ability to take on greater responsibility for its own defense and weaken deterrence against potential conflicts in the region. The cost savings, he suggested, were marginal compared to the diplomatic uncertainty and military vulnerability that might result.

The move echoed Trump's first term. In 2018, he had suspended the exercises entirely during denuclearization negotiations with Kim, calling them provocative and expensive. The drills were scaled back again in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. This time, the announcement came just days after North Korea conducted its second ballistic missile test in as many weeks—tests that violated United Nations restrictions. Pyongyang's foreign ministry had already condemned the joint drills as a rehearsal for aggressive war.

For Seoul, the situation presented a complicated picture. On one hand, South Korea had been hoping Trump would engage directly with North Korea, and his recent overtures suggested he might be willing to return to the negotiating table. But Trump's criticism of South Korea's refusal to support American operations in Iran signaled displeasure with the alliance itself. He had expressed similar frustrations with Japan, France, and the UK over their reluctance to become involved in Middle Eastern conflicts. Trump has also repeatedly complained that the United States provides security to South Korea without receiving adequate compensation, and he has questioned the cost of maintaining American troops on the peninsula.

South Korea had tried to manage these tensions. Earlier in the year, Seoul committed $350 billion to investment in the United States. Last year, South Korea's president had described Trump as a peacemaker. But the latest announcement suggested that such gestures might not be enough to shift Trump's calculus. Meanwhile, South Korea's own president had proposed talks with North Korea about officially ending the war between the two nations—a conflict that has technically remained active since the 1953 armistice. The question now was whether Trump's reduction of the military exercises would create space for such diplomacy or simply weaken the deterrent that has kept the peninsula stable for seven decades.