North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands during their meeting at Panmunjom on June 30, 2019. After holding two summits in Singapore in June 2018 and in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019, the two sides also met at Panmunjom but produced no results. /AFP-Yonhap
U.S. President Donald Trump has again turned to scaling back joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises — a move North Korea has long reacted sensitively to — as a card to improve relations with Pyongyang. Analysts read the move as an attempt to use dialogue with North Korea as a new breakthrough, at a time when fatigue over the prolonged Iran war is expected to weigh on the November midterm elections.
The two allies have precedent for this. After the Singapore summit between the United States and North Korea in June 2018, they suspended or scaled back several joint drills, including Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS). Reducing the exercises that North Korea had strongly opposed helped sustain U.S.-North Korea dialogue into the following year. This time as well, using a reduction in joint drills as leverage to create an atmosphere for dialogue — and potentially a U.S.-North Korea summit — could serve to divert Americans’ attention from the drawn-out Iran war. Some analysts say it could help halt the decline in Trump’s approval rating and boost Republican performance in the midterms.
U.S. Forces Korea soldiers walk past military vehicles at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, on Aug. 17, as the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise begins. /News1
According to military authorities, the allies began UFS, the annual joint exercise for defending the Korean Peninsula in a contingency, on the 17th. This UFS is proceeding as originally planned, but with Trump’s order to scale back joint exercises, there is a possibility of changes to the scale and format of future drills. Battalion-level and larger joint field training exercises (FTX) numbered 14, slightly down from 17 a year earlier, but excluding these, the overall scale of the exercises was similar to previous years.
After the U.S. and South Korean militaries announced this plan at a joint UFS briefing on the 10th, the U.S. side has not, as of now, formally requested that South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense reduce this UFS, according to reports.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after disembarking from Air Force One upon arriving at Joint Base Andrews on Aug. 16 (local time). /AP-Yonhap
Still, Trump’s remarks could affect the remaining joint exercises in the second half of this year. Battalion-level and larger joint FTX were set to expand to about 160 this year from about 140 last year. Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University, forecast that “there is a possibility of an overall review starting from the next exercise,” adding that “combined with the second Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy (NDS), which signals it will not play a leading role on the Korean Peninsula, deterrence against North Korea could weaken going forward.”
The moves have drawn concern and criticism within the United States as well. Andy Kim, a Korean American Democratic senator from New Jersey, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the alliance with South Korea is essential not only to the United States but to security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, and that the order to scale back joint drills gives the impression of disregarding U.S.-South Korea relations.
Mark Kelly, a Democratic senator from Arizona and a former Navy fighter pilot, also criticized the move on X, calling the neutering of joint exercises a shortsighted mistake. The New York Times likewise reported that the announcement could deepen doubts about U.S. resolve to deter China. The point is that scaling back joint drills could negatively affect the U.S. Indo-Pacific security strategy, including its efforts to check China.
Along with scaling back the joint exercises, Trump raised the pressure by demanding that South Korea join U.S. efforts to denuclearize Iran. This is read as an expression of frustration — that South Korea, which demands North Korea’s denuclearization, does not join the U.S.-led push to denuclearize Iran — and as a call for Seoul’s cooperation with Washington.
Trump’s writing that he “asked the Korean president whether he was willing to join the effort to denuclearize Iran, but was declined” can also be seen as a message to respond more actively to U.S. demands on future diplomatic and security issues. Park said, “For President Trump, the Iran war is about denuclearization, and the core of U.S.-North Korea dialogue is likewise denuclearization, so he has effectively linked the two,” analyzing it as “a criticism that he has taken on the North Korean denuclearization that South Korea cannot achieve, so why won’t South Korea join the Iran war?”
In March, Trump requested via Truth Social that allies including South Korea deploy warships to the Strait of Hormuz, but no country offered a positive response. The presidential office explained that it “has actively participated in international discussions to restore a ceasefire in Iran and free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and is closely discussing practical, military contribution measures with the U.S. side, taking into account various factors such as the Korean Peninsula’s readiness posture and domestic legal procedures.”
Whether North Korea will respond to Trump’s conciliatory gestures remains uncertain. Even though Trump issued messages aimed at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on both the 15th and 16th local time, North Korean media such as the Korean Central News Agency have yet to show any notable response.
Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said, “In 2018 and 2019, North Korea staked everything on direct negotiations with the United States to ease sanctions and secure its regime, but now, through military and economic ties with Russia and an anti-U.S. bloc of North Korea, China and Russia, it has greatly reduced its diplomatic dependence on the United States.” He added, “A summit with a Trump who is on the defensive carries a high ‘risk of being used’ from North Korea’s standpoint,” and further said, “North Korea likely judges that completing the advancement of its nuclear force is the top priority, rather than a half-baked small deal with an untrustworthy United States.”