Trump Cuts South Korea Drills to Court Kim
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Trump ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to scale back Ulchi Freedom Shield, an 11-day drill scheduled for August 17–27 involving roughly 18,000 South Korean troops rehearsing missile strikes, drone incursions, and cyber-attack scenarios.
- The order came days after North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles, yet Trump called the regime "unthreatening and respectful" and said the drills "send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile."
- Senate Democrats Jack Reed, Mark Kelly, and Andy Kim blasted the decision as "inane, haphazard," and "shortsighted," warning it signals that "America's commitments are negotiable" to allies and adversaries alike.
- Trump separately tied the cuts to Seoul's refusal to join the US military campaign against Iran — a conflict tied to Tehran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz and rising US missile-stockpile costs — while acknowledging the two issues had "little to do with one another."
- The US-South Korea alliance dates to the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty, with roughly 28,500 American troops still stationed under a combined US-South Korean command structure backed by Washington's nuclear umbrella pledge.
- Trump's own 2026 Annual Threat Assessment describes North Korea as an "increasingly confident" WMD threat whose ICBMs can already reach US soil, per former DNI Tulsi Gabbard's March testimony — directly contradicting the president's "unthreatening" framing.
- Outgoing Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina warned the cuts would inadvertently free up thousands of North Korean troops "to support Putin's systematic kidnapping, torture, rape and murder of innocent Ukrainian citizens."
Why it matters: A 73-year-old mutual defense pact and roughly 28,500 forward-deployed US troops are now subject to exercise cuts Trump himself framed as retaliation for Seoul declining to join his Iran war. The timing — days after North Korean missile tests and amid confirmed North Korean troop deployments to Russia's Ukraine war — gives Pyongyang a propaganda win while potentially freeing more Kim-aligned forces for Moscow's front lines.
Ask SkimNews
