Joint military exercises underway between the United States and South Korea are being cut short, both countries said, after President Donald Trump, citing his “very good” relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, ordered that they be reduced.
The annual U.S.-South Korea drills, known as Ulchi Freedom Shield, will end Aug. 21 rather than Aug. 27 as originally scheduled, a Defense Department official said.
“Associated live-training events have been reduced, with certain events canceled or converted to simulations,” the official said, adding that the adjustments “preserve essential readiness.”
“There will be no degradation to U.S. training objectives,” the official said.
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The South Korean National Defense Ministry also said the two countries “have agreed, at the request of the U.S. side, to make some adjustments to the duration and scale of the exercise.”
Some of the combined field training exercises will be conducted on a reduced scale, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the U.S. and South Korea “are currently consulting on the specific details.”
“Going forward, the ROK and the United States will discuss and implement various measures to achieve the objectives of the UFS exercise and maintain a robust combined defense posture,” the ministry said, using an abbreviation for South Korea’s formal name, the Republic of Korea.
The ministry declined to comment on a reported meeting Tuesday between Gen. Xavier Brunson, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, and South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back.
The surprise comments by Trump, which he made on social media hours before the exercises began Monday, have unsettled South Korea, which relies heavily on the U.S. for its security, as well as other U.S. allies in the region facing a growing threat from nuclear-armed North Korea.
South Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Cho Hyun said Ahn had been “in close consultation with the U.S. side” since Trump’s social media post. He told lawmakers Wednesday that “neither our government nor officials in the U.S. government had any prior knowledge” of Trump’s order to scale back the drills.
According to U.S. Forces Korea, the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise with South Korea, which hosts 28,000 American troops, aims to build understanding between the two militaries to ensure their “ability to fortify the combined defense posture” and enhance their response to “a spectrum of security threats.”
Foremost among those threats is North Korea, which in recent years has advanced its missile and nuclear capabilities and developed a close security relationship with Russia.
Though the U.S. and South Korea say their drills are defensive in nature, North Korea routinely criticizes them as a rehearsal for invasion and often test-fires weapons in protest.
In his post Sunday, Trump said the exercises sent a “totally inappropriate and hostile” message to North Korea, which he said had been “unthreatening and respectful” during his time in office.
He also expressed anger over South Korea’s level of involvement in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and said he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the exercises.
Trump, who met with Kim three times during his first term as president, has repeatedly expressed interest in resuming talks after their earlier round of diplomacy collapsed in 2019. But Kim, whose position has strengthened considerably since then, has rebuffed overtures from Trump, as well as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, saying he will not come to the table unless they drop their demands for North Korea to denuclearize first.
Trump told reporters Monday that he was not sacrificing the security of U.S. allies to curry favor with North Korea and that he was “actually making it much safer.”
He said Kim had responded to his outreach, without providing details. “I understand him; he understands me,” Trump said.
North Korea has not publicly responded to Trump’s call to curtail the exercises. A commentary published Wednesday by the state-run news agency KCNA reiterated the regime’s criticism of the drills, saying Pyongyang’s “exercise of its right to self-defense will continue to completely neutralize the enemies’ military threat.”
