Trump posted today: "Given my good personal relationship with North Korea's Kim Jong-un, I am deeply dissatisfied with the fact that the United States had long ago agreed to conduct joint military exercises with South Korea.

These drills are extremely costly, with the vast majority of expenses borne by the U.S. (as always!), and they send a highly hostile and entirely inappropriate signal to North Korea. As long as Donald Trump remains president, North Korea has consistently maintained a restrained posture and shown us respect.

Given that it's now too late to cancel the exercises altogether, I have instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to drastically reduce the scale of these joint military maneuvers!

Perhaps it seems unrelated? Recently, I asked the South Korean president whether they would be willing to join us in pushing for the denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their response was: 'No thanks!' Thank you all for your attention on this matter."

Commentary: Trump's announcement to significantly scale back U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises reflects his consistent transactional foreign policy approach—aiming to signal de-escalation toward North Korea and reopen diplomatic channels, while simultaneously venting about how the U.S. bears nearly all the costs of these exercises. To traditional American establishment politicians, these joint drills are the cornerstone of the alliance; but to Trump, they are merely a costly obstacle preventing engagement with North Korea and thus a negotiable asset. On another level, his mention of South Korea’s unwillingness to participate in Iran’s denuclearization effort also reveals clear divergences among allies—South Korea is clearly reluctant to be forcibly drawn into Middle Eastern conflicts. Trump’s pragmatic and blunt rhetoric is saturated with transactional logic: using the reduction of military drills as leverage to win over North Korea, while simultaneously admonishing South Korea not to rely solely on American protection without contributing to America’s global strategy. However, drastically cutting these exercises will inevitably undermine military trust within the U.S.-South Korea alliance. How to balance dialogue with North Korea while reassuring Seoul will become a serious and complex challenge for Trump moving forward.

Original source: toutiao.com/article/1873724676687882/

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