Trump Gutted the Joint Military Exercises Defending Ally South Korea — Hours Before They Began — Because Kim Jong Un Is "Unthreatening and Respectful" and "I Understand Him," and to Punish Seoul for Refusing to Join His Iran War, Rewarding the Nuclear Dictator Who Flatters Him at a Democratic Ally's Expense
On August 16, 2026 — hours before they were set to begin — Trump directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to "substantially reduce" the long-scheduled Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises with South Korea, the roughly 18,000-troop drills that keep the mutual-defense alliance ready against a North Korean attack. His reasons: his "very good relationship" with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, and South Korea's refusal to join his war in Iran. The exercises, Trump complained, "send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful." He praised a "very wise and reasoned" Kim decision and said, "I understand him. He understands me." Every premise is false or backwards. Kim Jong Un is not "unthreatening": he has declared North Korea is and always will be a nuclear power, keeps testing missiles, and calls South Korea a hostile enemy. The drills are not a provocation; they are the routine readiness of a seventy-year treaty alliance. And cutting them to punish Seoul for declining an unrelated war treats a democratic ally's defense as a chip to be revoked when it won't follow Trump into a conflict it wants no part of. Asian allies were left visibly nervous — watching an American president weaken a treaty commitment because a nuclear dictator was nice to him.