{"id":122832,"date":"2026-08-18T02:56:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T02:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/122832\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T02:56:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T02:56:49","slug":"trump-reduces-military-training-with-south-korea-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/122832\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump reduces military training with South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump reduces military training with South Korea, citing ‘great respect’ from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un<\/p>\n

We asked the president about concerns that he is prioritizing the interests of a long-time adversary. <\/p>\n

\"Jackie<\/a>WASHINGTON \u2014<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump defended his decision to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, despite criticism that it risks emboldening North Korea. <\/p>\n

Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday that he decided to cut back on military training with South Korea, in part because the country refused to help with his war against Iran. In an earlier social media post, Trump added that the exercises are costly and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea. <\/p>\n

Asked to respond to concerns that he is prioritizing the interests of an American adversary over a long-time ally, Trump told Washington Correspondent Jackie DeFusco, “I’m doing the opposite. You see, I’m actually making it much safer. Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect.”<\/p>\n

Trump criticized another reporter from CNN who attempted to ask if North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, personally asked him to scale back military training with South Korea. He dismissed the network as “fake news” and didn’t respond to the question.<\/p>\n

In a different exchange, Trump conceded that he has had a conversation with the North Korean leader, but he offered no further details on what was discussed. <\/p>\n

On Friday, North Korea described the planned military exercises that started Monday as \u201ca rehearsal for an aggressive war” and a cause of instability in the region.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the exercises argue that they’re intended to beef up readiness amid threats from North Korea. The country has been trying to expand its nuclear and missile arsenals since Trump’s previous diplomatic efforts fell short during his first term in 2019.<\/p>\n

Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, slammed Trump’s decision in a social media post on Monday. <\/p>\n

“When 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 \u2014 and adversaries \u2014 think that America’s commitments are negotiable,” Reed said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump reduces military training with South Korea, citing ‘great respect’ from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un We asked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[63552,11865,47818,63550,63553,114,89,54270,63143,141,31,63551,63503,60072,1694,34,2447,414,2642,33,1722,11602,2991,1723],"class_list":["post-122832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-american-adversary","tag-country","tag-decision","tag-early-social-medium-post","tag-instability","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-joint-military-exercise","tag-joint-military-exercises","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-korea","tag-long-time-ally","tag-mcnd","tag-military-training","tag-monday","tag-north-korea","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-politics","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-south-korea","tag-trump","tag-us-military","tag-war","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}