Trump Does Kim Jong Un A Favour

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he has ordered the Pentagon to scale back the joint military exercises with South Korea that began this week.

In a Truth Social post, the president said his decision was based on his “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” and described North Korea as “unthreatening and respectful.” He also condemned South Korea for declining to help the US de-nuclearise Iran.

The joint exercises were expected to last 11 days and involve 18,000 South Korean soldiers, The Associated Press reported. In a statement carried by state media Friday, North Korea described the training as “a rehearsal for an aggressive war.”

Trump said that he sees the exercises as “hostile” to North Korea and costly for the US, but because it was too late to cancel them, he had ordered a reduction instead.

On Saturday, Trump posted a photo of himself standing next to the North Korean dictator and said the two get along well “despite the unfriendly look on this particular picture.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what scaling back the exercises would entail. South Korea’s Defense Ministry told AP that the drills had started on Monday local time as planned.

According to The New York Times, the two countries have conducted joint military exercises for over 70 years. Such exercises have been dedicated to honing the readiness of US and South Korean troops so they’re prepared to respond to North Korea’s military and weapons capabilities.

Historically, North Korean leaders have criticized the exercises while finding ways to capitalize on them. Experts told The AP that North Korea has used the exercises as a “pretext” to do its own weapons testing and curry goodwill for Kim. Just last week, North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea ahead of the start of the drills.

It’s also not the first time that Trump has sought to curtail the exercises. He suspended the exercises in 2018 as part of denuclearization talks with North Korea, BBC News reported.

Critics of Trump’s announcement on Sunday emphasized that the move essentially aligned the US president with an authoritarian leader, while undermining America’s long relationship with South Korea.

“Our ability to help defend our ally against the North Koreans is because our forces are well trained and able to coordinate with the South Koreans,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) wrote on X. “Hollowing out these joint exercises is shortsighted and a mistake.”

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