Trump says US scaling back military drills with South Korea
US President Donald Trump said that he is 'not happy' about US participation in joint military drills with South Korea, citing his 'very good relationship with Kim Jong Un' and challenging a long-standing alliance aimed at deterring the nuclear-armed North.
US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea. According to Trump, the annual drills are costly and send a hostile signal to North Korea, with which he claims to have a "very good relationship".
The exercises, called Ulchi Freedom Shield, were set to begin on August 17 and run until August 27, involving 18,000 South Korean soldiers. They were expected to include operations to counter drones, disrupt GPS signals, and defend against cyberattacks.
Trump also mentioned that South Korea declined to help with the US effort to denuclearize Iran, which he cited as a reason for scaling back the drills. The decision comes as North Korea has reportedly been providing troops to aid Russia in its war against Ukraine and days after North Korea reportedly fired ballistic missiles.
Brief written by urgent.news from Le Monde English, CBC News, DW News, DW English (Top Stories), Bloomberg — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
