{
  "id": 1397496,
  "title": "Trump says US scaling back military drills with South Korea",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/17/trump-says-us-scaling-back-military-drills-with-south-korea",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-08-17T02:02:12.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Le Monde English",
    "slug": "le-monde-english",
    "url": "https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/08/17/trump-says-us-scaling-back-military-drills-with-south-korea_6756572_4.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "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\".\n\nThe 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.\n\nTrump 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.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}