If President Donald Trump makes good on his threat to pull funding from military drills with South Korea, the United States would gain little while eroding trust in Seoul and other key allies in the region, South Korean analysts warn. In a Truth Social post Tuesday, Trump said he was unhappy with the "costly" exercises and that he had directed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to significantly reduce them, touting his "very good relationship" with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump also pointed out that South Korea had rejected his request to send military forces to assist the U.S. in its "denuclearization" of Iran.
Trump met with Kim three times during his first term in a failed bid to walk back his nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. The president has said he remains open to another meeting. Trump's post came as the American and South Korean militaries launched the 10-day Ulchi Freedom Shield, an annual exercise to prepare for a possible conflict with Pyongyang.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry characterized Ulchi Freedom Shield as a rehearsal for a war of aggression. Kim's regime is in a stronger position than it was during Trump's last face-to-face with Kim in 2019. The country tests ever more advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles.
It continues its buildout of nuclear facilities, even enshrining its nuclear capability in its constitution. And veterans of the Russia-Ukraine war have gained valuable experience in modern warfare they could bring to bear if hostilities resume on the Korean Peninsula. Trump's decision to scale back the exercises, which Hegseth has labeled a model ally, shows Washington to be a "fickle and unreliable" partner, Sean King, an Asia scholar and senior vice president at New York-based consultancy Park Strategies, told Newsweek.
"Kim Jong Un—and [Chinese President] Xi Jinping for that matter—now have further evidence of how much they can separate Trump from traditional U.S. allies with flattery and very little substance in return," he said. "Trump is, in some ways, doing their job for them." "And if he's worried about Iran, he should remember Tehran has few better friends than the Kim regime," King added. The two countries have for decades shared missile components and data on test flights, and Pyongyang is believed to have supplied missiles that served as blueprints for Iran's own.
Newsweek reached out to the White House and North Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C., by email with requests for comment. Trump's critics have frequently accused him of cozying up to strongman leaders including Kim, Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping while disparaging close European allies. The Truth Social post came as Japan-based USS George Washington sails for the Middle East, leaving the Western Pacific temporarily without an American aircraft carrier.
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