President Donald Trump said he has ordered a major cut to joint military drills with South Korea, saying the exercises are costly and send an unfriendly signal to North Korea. He shared the announcement in a post on Truth Social.
Trump said his decision is based on what he called his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He said North Korea has stayed “unthreatening and respectful” throughout his time as president.
In the same post, Trump brought up a separate matter involving South Korea’s president, saying he had asked South Korea to help the United States with denuclearizing Iran, and that the answer he received was “No thanks!”
Trump says the drills are costly and sends the wrong message
In his post, Trump said the United States and South Korea agreed “long ago” to hold joint military exercises together. He said these exercises are expensive, and that the U.S. ends up paying for most of the cost, calling this “as usual.”
He said the drills send a message that is “totally inappropriate and hostile” toward North Korea. Trump added that it was too late to cancel the exercises completely, so he instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” them instead.
Trump then shifted to a separate point in his post, writing, “While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!'” He did not explain further how the two topics were connected, but he placed them in the same post. During the Iran conflict, Kim Jong Un had also made comments about North Korea’s own nuclear weapons aimed at Trump.
Trump ended his message by thanking readers “for your attention to this matter” and signed off as “President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
As per Mediaite, this is not the first time Trump has commented on his relationship with Kim Jong Un. During his first term, he referred to Kim as “Rocket Man” and said in 2017 that Kim was on a “suicide mission” by continuing nuclear weapons testing. At the time, Trump also said the U.S. could “totally destroy” North Korea if needed.
Their public relationship shifted after that. In 2018, Trump described Kim as “very honorable.” Later, during his 2024 campaign, Trump said he wanted to take Kim to a baseball game in New York. Trump has also previously brought up comments Kim made mocking Biden’s mental fitness, even as Kim has said harsher things about Trump himself.
Speaking to a crowd in Michigan during that campaign, Trump talked about the idea of easing tensions with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. “All he wants to do is buy nuclear weapons and make them,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Just relax. Chill. You got enough. You got so much nuclear weapons, so much.’ I said, ‘Just relax. Go to a nice – let’s go to a baseball game. I’ll show you what a baseball [is].’ We’ll go watch the Yankees.”
The joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea have been a regular part of the two countries’ defense cooperation for years. These drills are generally meant to prepare both militaries to respond together if needed. Trump’s Sunday post did not specify by how much the exercises would be reduced or when the change would take effect.
Published: Aug 17, 2026 07:30 am