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Exercises scaled back
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” joint military exercises with South Korea, directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to scale down the training set to begin this week.
“directed the Defense Department to scale down joint military exercises with South Korea”
Trump said the drills were costly and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, citing his “very good relationship” with Kim Jong Un.
The exercises were scheduled to run as part of Ulchi Freedom Shield, with about 18,000 South Korean soldiers participating, and were described as including operations to counter drones, disrupt GPS signals and cyberattacks.
Reuters reported the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises were scheduled to run from August 17 to 27, while Trump said it was “too late to cancel” entirely hours before the start.
Iran refusal and North Korea
Trump linked the decision to South Korea’s refusal to join U.S. efforts to denuclearize Iran, writing, “While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’”.
NBC News said Trump cited South Korea’s refusal to join the war in Iran and his “very good” relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as reasons for the scale-back.
North Korea last week called the drills a “war rehearsal” and threatened to retaliate, and the BBC said Pyongyang had not yet commented on Trump’s announcement.
The BBC also reported that Seoul said the drills with the US would proceed “as scheduled,” even as Trump said he had instructed Hegseth to “substantially reduce” them.
What happens next
The scale-back was set to take effect immediately, with NBC News saying the training was set to start Monday only hours after Trump’s announcement, and Reuters describing the drills as expected to include operations to counter drones, disrupt GPS signals and cyberattacks.
“The command was set to carry out the Ulchi Freedom Shield training Monday”
The BBC said the 11-day event was due to start Monday and would be similar in scale to previous years, with about 18,000 South Korean soldiers participating, while Reuters said the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises were scheduled to run from August 17 to 27.
NBC News reported that South Korea’s embassy in Washington and U.S. Forces Korea did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and it described U.S. Forces Korea as the sub-unified command tasked with carrying out the exercises.
The Reuters account also placed the decision against recent missile activity, saying North Korea last Wednesday fired a ballistic missile from its eastern coast towards the Sea of Japan, six days after a similar launch on August 6.
