This file photo shows a US military vehicle crossing a floating bridge on the Namhan River during a joint military drill with the South Korean army. (AP photo)
U.S. President Donald Trump said he ordered the Pentagon to scale back “inappropriate and hostile” military drills with South Korea, hours before the exercises began on Aug. 17.
Trump cited his “good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and said he was unhappy about the drills that are designed to prepare for a possible attack by Pyongyang.
The South Korean Presidential Office said it remained in “close coordination” with Washington on the exercises, while the Defense Ministry said the maneuvers had kicked off as “previously notified and scheduled.”
“Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” he added.
As it was too late to cancel the drills, Trump said he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” them.
North Korea has not responded publicly to the statements, though it has consistently voiced anger at the regular exercises.
The 11-day maneuvers come as Pyongyang and Moscow have grown closer, with the North providing military support, including ground troops, for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Colonel Ryan Donald, spokesman for the U.S. and South Korean Combined Forces Command, had said the drills would simulate combat against North Korean troops battle-hardened by deployment in the Russia-Ukraine war.
South Korea’s presidential office said in a statement to AFP that Seoul and Washington “have maintained close coordination on maintaining a firm combined defense posture and on their joint exercises and training, and will continue to coordinate closely.”
It said it hoped the personal chemistry between Trump and Kim would bring them back to talks.
The office “hopes that the friendly relationship between the leaders of the United States and North Korea will lead to meaningful dialogue,” it said.
Pyongyang decries the drills as dress rehearsals for an invasion.
After test-firing a ballistic missile over the Sea of Japan as a sign of its opposition to the exercises, Pyongyang warned on Aug. 14 it could respond with a “new level of deterrent.”
The U.S. stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to bolster the country’s defenses against military threats from Pyongyang, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
But Trump has repeatedly challenged long-standing alliances, especially as Western partners have withheld overt backing for his war against Iran.
Trump took aim at South Korea in Aug. 16’s post, writing: “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!’”
