Across Washington last week, feverish gossip and innuendo swirled around Donald Trump\u2019s close relationship with a young White House aide. But the president\u2019s heart was bent on rekindling a love affair from his first term in office.<\/p>\n
\u201cKim Jong-un<\/a> has always treated me with great respect,\u201d Trump said of the North Korean tyrant. \u201cI understand him. He understands me.\u201d<\/p>\n In an attempt to recapture the magic of his last meeting with the nuclear-armed despot in 2019, Trump did not hesitate to throw a key ally under the bus. Posting on social media, where so much US foreign policy is conducted these days, the president announced that he had ordered the Pentagon to \u201csubstantially reduce\u201d military exercises with South Korea.<\/p>\n Unconcerned by the acceleration of North Korea\u2019s nuclear weapons programme or its military alliances with Russia and Iran, Trump declared that the war games \u2013 which have underpinned US military posture on the Korean peninsula since the 1950s \u2013 \u201csend a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile\u201d towards Kim. The president has said he \u201cfell in love\u201d with the North Korean dictator during his first term.<\/p>\n In a manoeuvre that is now familiar to weary allies, Trump turned on Seoul, blaming his decision on South Korea\u2019s refusal to join the war against Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have 39,000 soldiers over there, guarding you from Kim Jong-un\u2026 and you\u2019re not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran? That\u2019s strange,\u201d he told reporters at the White House.<\/p>\n He returned to a refrain that has epitomised his second term: \u201cWe can\u2019t go around and protect all of these countries, especially when they\u2019re not there to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n Still trapped between military escalation and a humiliating climbdown with Iran, Trump continues to lash out at old friends he now blames for the quagmire in the Middle East.<\/p>\n South Korea was not the only ally to fall victim to Trump\u2019s frustrated, upside-down diplomacy last week.<\/p>\n Oman, a key intermediary with Iran for years, is still endeavouring to break the deadlock and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and has quietly opened a shipping corridor to move oil out of the Gulf. Its reward was a threat from an impatient president that he would \u201cbomb the shit out of them\u201d if Oman \u201cgets in the way\u201d of a deal to end the war.<\/p>\n Sign up to newsletters from The Observer<\/p>\n Rachel Sylvester on politics<\/p>\n The Observer’s political editor shares her exclusive insight into what’s happening in Westminster, Whitehall and beyond.<\/p>\n