Trump courts Kim Jong Un with South Korea drill cuts
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- Trump is pushing to rekindle his first-term relationship with Kim Jong Un, expressing his desire for another meeting with the North Korean leader.
- Trump reduced joint military exercises with South Korea in what the source describes as an effort to appease Kim.
- Trump met with Kim three times during his first term, establishing the personal diplomacy he is now trying to revive.
- The source frames Trump's outreach as courting a dictator, casting the reduced military cooperation with Seoul as a concession to Pyongyang.
Why it matters: Scaling back joint exercises with a treaty ally is a concrete security concession, not just rhetoric — it reduces US-South Korea military readiness in exchange for the prospect of a Trump-Kim summit. The source presents no reciprocal commitment from Pyongyang, meaning the concession flows one way at the time of writing.
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