{"id":221019,"date":"2026-08-18T02:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T02:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-move-to-gut-south-korea-alliance-is-inane-haphazard-decision-lawmakers-say-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T02:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T02:20:18","slug":"trumps-move-to-gut-south-korea-alliance-is-inane-haphazard-decision-lawmakers-say-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-move-to-gut-south-korea-alliance-is-inane-haphazard-decision-lawmakers-say-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s move to gut South Korea alliance is \u2018inane, haphazard decision\u2019, lawmakers say – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president\u2019s abrupt order to scale back joint exercises with Seoul is meant to \u2018flatter\u2019 North Korea\u2019s dictator, top Democrat says
US politics live \u2013 latest updates<\/a>
Donald Trump\u2019s move to gut Washington\u2019s 73-year-old military alliance with Seoul has been called \u201cinane\u201d and \u201cshortsighted\u201d as lawmakers warned it risked strengthening Russia\u2019s hand in Ukraine.
The US president abruptly ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea<\/a> just days after North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles, justifying the decision by citing his \u201cvery good relationship\u201d with Kim Jong-un, the nuclear-armed dictator such exercises exist to deter.
Trump announced the order on social media, directing the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to scale back Ulchi Freedom Shield, an 11-day exercise due to run from 17 to 27 August involving about 18,000 South Korean troops rehearsing scenarios including missile strikes, drone incursions and cyber-attacks.
Trump framed the decision as a courtesy to Kim, writing that the drills \u201csend a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile\u201d to a country he described as \u201cunthreatening and respectful\u201d, despite North Korea\u2019s continued missile testing and its expanding nuclear arsenal.
Democrats in Congress said the move handed Kim a propaganda win for nothing, while an ally was left paying the price for a war in the Middle East it never agreed to fight.
Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate armed services committee, called it \u201canother inane, haphazard decision by President Trump and his chaotic administration\u201d.
\u201cWhen President Trump cuts military exercises to flatter a dictator or punishes South Korea for declining to join a war he started, all of our allies \u2013 and adversaries \u2013 think that America\u2019s commitments are negotiable,\u201d Reed said in a statement, describing the move as punishing Korea \u201cfor no reason beyond Trump\u2019s ego\u201d.
Reed\u2019s warning was echoed by Mark Kelly of Arizona, who sits on the same committee, and argued that the drills were not symbolic but the basis of the alliance\u2019s ability to function in a crisis. \u201cNorth and South Korea are still technically at war,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cOur ability to help defend our ally against the North Koreans is because our forces are well trained and able to coordinate with the South Koreans. Hollowing out these joint exercises is shortsighted and a mistake.\u201d
In the Oval Office on Monday, Trump claimed Kim had responded to his overtures, but did not provide details. \u201cI understand him,\u201d the president said. \u201cHe understands me.\u201d
The alliance Trump is now unwinding dates to the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty signed after the Korean war armistice. Roughly 28,500 American troops remain stationed<\/a> in South Korea, backed by a combined US-South Korean command structure and Washington\u2019s pledge to extend its nuclear umbrella over Seoul.
Despite Trump calling North Korea \u201cunthreatening\u201d, his own administration\u2019s 2026 Annual Threat Assessment describes an \u201cincreasingly confident North Korean regime\u201d, warning that its weapons of mass destruction, conventional forces and cyber operations threaten the US, South Korea and Japan. His former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified in March<\/a> that \u201cNorth Korea\u2019s ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] can already reach US soil\u201d.
Trump also tied his decision to the Iran war, saying he was unhappy that Seoul had declined to join the US military campaign against Iran, a campaign that has drained US missile stockpiles and, after Tehran shut the strait of Hormuz, helped push up prices at home<\/a>. He acknowledged the two issues had little to do with one another, even as he punished Seoul over both.
\u201cWhile somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, \u2018No thanks\u2019!\u201d Trump wrote.
Andy Kim, the New Jersey senator who sits on the Senate foreign relations committee, said linking the exercises to that refusal exposed a troubling attitude toward a key partner.
\u201cOur alliance with the Republic of Korea is critical for US security and prosperity \u2013 and I am concerned that President Trump\u2019s post today suggests a disregard for this relationship,\u201d Kim said. \u201cSouth Korea is an essential partner in peace and security in a part of the world filled with risk; we should treat them that way instead of venting frustration on social media.\u201d
It is not the first time Trump has treated the drills as a bargaining chip. After his 2018 summit with Kim in Singapore, he suspended major exercises outright, calling them costly and provocative, before they were quietly restored once nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang broke down.
The dispute comes as Seoul has spent much of the past year charting its own path on the Middle East. In February, South Korea\u2019s government said it had<\/a> \u201cgrave concern\u201d over Israeli measures expanding control in the occupied West Bank and urged Israel to \u201creverse its decisions immediately\u201d.
In April, Seoul\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations told the security council that any unilateral annexation of Palestinian territory \u201cshould be revoked\u201d. Lee Jae Myung, the president of South Korea, has twice clashed publicly with Israel: in April over remarks he made<\/a> comparing footage of an Israeli soldier\u2019s treatment of a Palestinian man\u2019s body to the Holocaust, and in May after two South Korean activists were detained<\/a> on a Gaza-bound aid mission.
Thom Tillis, the outgoing Republican senator from North Carolina, chimed in making the point that the butterfly effect of Trump\u2019s decision would inadvertently benefit Russia.
\u201cSouth Korea has been a solid military ally for over 70 years that possesses exquisite military capabilities,\u201d Tillis wrote on social media. \u201cReducing joint exercises with South Korea does nothing more than free up thousands of North Korea\u2019s troops to support Putin\u2019s systematic kidnapping, torture, rape and murder of innocent Ukrainian citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US president\u2019s abrupt order to scale back joint exercises with Seoul is meant to \u2018flatter\u2019 North Korea\u2019s dictator, top Democrat saysUS politics live \u2013 latest updatesDonald Trump\u2019s move to gut Washington\u2019s 73-year-old military alliance with Seoul has been called \u201cinane\u201d and \u201cshortsighted\u201d as lawmakers warned it risked strengthening Russia\u2019s hand in Ukraine.The US president abruptly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}