Trump Orders Pentagon to Cut South Korea Drills, Citing Kim Ties and Cost

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U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” joint military exercises with South Korea, describing the annual drills as costly and “totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, with which he said he had a “very good relationship” with leader Kim Jong Un.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises began Monday as scheduled and are due to run through August 27. About 18,000 South Korean troops are participating alongside U.S. forces and personnel from 11 of the 18 member states of the United Nations Command, the multinational body that oversees the 1953 armistice that halted hostilities in the Korean War.

Trump said it was too late to cancel the exercises, but that he was “not happy” with U.S. participation. “These exercises are not only costly ... 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 wrote on his Truth Social platform.

He also linked the decision to South Korea’s refusal to join what he called the “denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” “I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us ... and they said, ‘No thanks!’” Trump wrote.

The comments came a day after Trump shared an old photo of himself with Kim on Truth Social, repeating his claim that the two “get along great,” fueling speculation about a renewed summit.

South Korea’s presidential Blue House said it was reviewing Trump’s remarks and expressed hope that the friendly relationship between the U.S. and North Korean leaders would lead to meaningful dialogue. It said the allies would continue coordinating their combined defense posture and military exercises, and that Seoul was discussing potential military contributions related to Iran while considering its own defense readiness and domestic legal procedures.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the drills began Monday as scheduled.

The exercise reduction comes as U.S. and South Korean commanders have been incorporating new threats into the training. At a joint briefing, Col. Ryan Donald, public affairs director for the U.S.-led commands in South Korea, said this year’s scenario would reflect “drones, GPS disruption and cyber attacks,” threats he linked directly to North Korean soldiers who have deployed and fought in Ukraine as part of Pyongyang’s military support for Russia.

“They’ve taken those lessons they learned there and brought them back to North Korea, that changes the DPRK capability,” Donald said, referring to North Korea’s formal name. “Our training accounts for that threat.”

Lt. Gen. Scott Winter, deputy commander of the United Nations Command, said at a separate briefing that the threats being countered “reflect the increased use of these technologies and the understanding that North Korea has contemporary battlefield experience.” He added that this year’s drills would be “bigger and better than ever.”

North Korea has deepened military ties with Russia, providing troops, artillery ammunition and ballistic missiles to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine. More than 14,000 North Korean troops have fought alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Russia is preparing to receive 30,000 more. The two countries are also close to completing the first road bridge ever built between them, over the Tumen river, which one open-source investigation concluded functions more as a military logistics corridor than a trade route.

In the days before the exercise began, North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles. Its foreign ministry called the exercise “a rehearsal for an aggressive war” and warned it would “respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent.” Pyongyang routinely denounces such drills as preparations for an invasion.

Trump’s order revives an approach he used during his first presidency. After his 2018 summit with Kim, major U.S.-South Korean exercises, including that year’s Ulchi Freedom Guardian, were canceled or suspended as Trump pursued direct diplomacy. The drills were later redesigned and resumed in modified forms. Trump once mocked Kim as “little rocket man” and threatened Pyongyang with “fire and fury,” while Kim called Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.” Yet the two leaders held three summits, and Trump later said, “we fell in love.”

Analysts were split on what the reduction could achieve. Jenny Town, director of the Stimson Center’s 38 North program, said the move “may be part of a larger effort to create a diplomatic opportunity with Pyongyang,” though the “haphazard nature of this move is unlikely to make much of an impression in Pyongyang.”

Victor Cha, head of the Korea program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Trump may be seeking greater influence over North Korea as Pyongyang has been heavily engaged in support of Russia in Ukraine. “The other way to look at this is that Trump wants to engage Kim as a way to impede the Russia-NK ties,” Cha said.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, cautioned that downsizing the exercise would “slow the process of South Korea taking on greater responsibility for its own defense, and weaken deterrence against possible conflicts in Asia.” He said the cost savings were marginal and the diplomatic benefits doubtful.

Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University, said Pyongyang was unlikely to be moved unless the exercises were canceled entirely. “It has little reason to see this as meaningful,” he said.

The alliance has also faced longstanding disputes over the cost of stationing roughly 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea and Seoul’s role in regional security. A U.S. official this year called Seoul a “model ally” committed to increasing defense spending, but a former U.S. official who worked in the first Trump administration said Trump was frustrated with what he called the South Korean government’s “intransigence” on economic issues.

The countries signed a trade deal last year to lower Trump’s auto tariffs in exchange for Seoul’s commitment to invest $350 billion, but South Korea has not announced details of its investment plan. The allies have also been at odds over a dispute involving U.S.-listed e-commerce company Coupang, which is being investigated by Seoul over a massive data leak.

For now, the exercises are continuing, but the order to reduce them signals another shift in how Washington is balancing military readiness on the Korean Peninsula with Trump’s stated interest in improving relations with North Korea.