President Donald Trump said the United States would scale back joint military exercises with South Korea because of its "very good relationship" with North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Un.
He wrote about this on the social network Truth Social.
According to the US president, he is unhappy that the United States agreed to participate in joint military exercises with South Korea a long time ago.
"Not only are these exercises expensive, with a significant portion of these costs covered by the United States (as always!), but they also send a completely inappropriate and hostile signal to a country that has posed no threat during Trumpʼs presidency and has always treated us with respect," Trump wrote.
He added that since it was too late to cancel the exercises, he had instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to significantly scale back the scale of the joint military exercises.
Separately, Trump said he recently offered South Korean President Lee Jae-myeon to join U.S. efforts to denuclearize Iran, but Seoul declined the offer, he said.
- In March of this year, the United States and South Korea conducted large-scale annual military exercises on the Korean Peninsula, Freedom Shield, aimed at strengthening the alliesʼ defense capabilities against threats from the DPRK.
- The new exercises are scheduled to begin on August 17. Prior to that, North Koreaʼs Foreign Ministry stated that these exercises were "bringing the world closer to nuclear war" and threatened to "exercise the right to self-defense".
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