scaling back<\/a> the exercises was \u201ca mistake,\u201d pointing to recent tensions along the border. <\/p>\n“Just a few days before that, we learned that North Korean troops crossed over the military demarcation line into South Korean territory.\u201d Chang said that incident was part of \u201ca series of provocations in the demilitarized zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump, speaking at the White House, also criticized South Korea over what he described as its unwillingness to help with the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was not happy when South Korea said, no, they’re not interested in helping us with the Hormuz Strait. And yet they get 60% of their oil from the Hormuz Strait,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI said, would you like to help us? He said, no thank you. I said, I and I said, please, thank you. He made us a lot of money. I didn’t like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chang said strain in the alliance existed even before Trump decided to scale back the drills. <\/p>\n
He criticized South Korea\u2019s president, saying, \u201cLee Jae Myung, the president of South Korea, is pro-China, pro-North Korea and deeply anti-U.S.\u201d <\/p>\n
Chang added, \u201cWe don’t know where he’s taking South Korea, but one of those places is a communist state. I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but that’s the direction of the president of South Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chang said the period ahead could be difficult, comparing the current situation to past eras under left-leaning South Korean leaders. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve weathered leftist, South Korean presidents before, three of them. But this fourth one, Eugene Mong, is so much more ruthless and determined than the previous three,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The developments also come amid uncertainty over the size of North Korea\u2019s nuclear arsenal. Trump said North Korea has \u201c57 very powerful and nuclear weapons,\u201d while South Korea\u2019s defense minister has estimated the number at between 80 and 120.<\/p>\n
Chang said Trump\u2019s specific figure may have been intended as a pressure tactic. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen President Trump was very clear about the number 57, what he was trying to do was to intimidate Kim Jong Un, I believe, because he was saying, look, although North Korea is sort of a closed society, we know exactly what you have,\u201d Chang said. \u201cThat’s your most important secret.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chang said the impact could depend on whether Trump\u2019s number is accurate. \u201cNow, if President Trump is right, Kim Jong Un will be intimidated. But if President Trump is wrong, I think it will embolden the North Koreans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As for the competing estimates, Chang said, \u201cI think probably President Trump is right. But this is something that we’re going to learn only later, if at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (TNND) \u2014 Tensions spiked on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea fired a barrage of roughly 10…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[65233,3858,141,31,37698,34,4925,33,1722,31206],"class_list":["post-127128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-alliance-tensions","tag-ballistic-missiles","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-korea","tag-military-exercises","tag-north-korea","tag-nuclear-arsenal","tag-south-korea","tag-trump","tag-u-s-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127128","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=127128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}