Trump cuts joint war drills with South Korea, blaming Seoul's refusal to help on Iran

President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to scale back the joint military exercises that American and South Korean forces run together — the drills that keep the two armies able to fight side by side. He said Monday, Aug. 17, that South Korea had refused to help the United States press Iran to give up its nuclear program, and that the refusal is what pushed him to cut the drills. He said it while acknowledging that American troops sit on the peninsula to deter North Korea. He has separately called the exercises expensive and described them as "hostile" toward North Korea, citing his "very good relationship" with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Democrats mocked the decision. Allies in the region, who already worry that Trump is walking away from old defense commitments, reacted with alarm.

What happened the last time Trump traded exercises for a Kim summit:

• He canceled the August 2018 Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills days after his first summit with Kim in Singapore, calling them provocative and, in his word, expensive.
• The follow-up summit in Hanoi collapsed in February 2019 with no deal.
• North Korea has run six nuclear tests, the last in September 2017, and kept building missiles through every pause in U.S. drills.
• Full-scale exercises did not return until August 2022, after four years of shrunken, mostly computer-simulated versions.
• The grievance driving this one is Iran — more than 4,000 miles from Seoul, and no part of what those troops are stationed there to deter.