Trump Cuts South Korea Drills After North Korea Threat
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- Trump ordered Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce Joint Military Exercises with South Korea on August 16, citing his "very good relationship" with Kim Jong Un — a move mirroring his 2018 full suspension of the drills, which he also called "provocative."
- North Korea has supplied missiles and arms to Russia since 2022 and, per Ukrainian estimates, provided roughly half of the munitions Russia used at the front in 2024-2025, alongside what the article calls the hermit kingdom's first foreign combat deployment of soldiers.
- North Korean ballistic missiles struck the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhiya on August 10, killing seven and wounding at least 24, according to Ukrainian officials.
- Ukrainian and Western intelligence agencies assess that North Korea is preparing to send an additional 30,000-50,000 troops to Russia.
- Col. Ryan Donald, a US military spokesman, said the exercises were designed to incorporate "lessons from recent conflicts," noting that DPRK soldiers who fought in Ukraine "brought those lessons... back to North Korea" and changed its capability profile.
- South Korea pushed back on Trump's complaint that Seoul declined to join in the "Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran," saying it had "actively participated" in international ceasefire talks and remained in close consultation with Washington.
Why it matters: By trimming exercises after a routine North Korean threat, Trump is effectively rewarding Pyongyang as it supplies roughly half of Russia's frontline munitions in 2024-2025 and deploys 30,000-50,000 more troops — while the Pentagon's own spokesman said the cancelled training would have incorporated combat lessons from DPRK soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
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