President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to scale back planned joint military exercises with South Korea, saying the drills are costly and send a hostile signal to North Korea, reports infohub.kz.
In a social media post, Trump said the exercises, slated to begin this week, are expensive and "send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile" to North Korea, which he said "has been unthreatening and respectful" while he has been in the White House.
"Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!" Trump wrote.
The 11-day exercises, involving 18,000 South Korean soldiers, were designed to boost readiness against North Korean threats. U.S. and South Korean forces were expected to practice joint operations in complex scenarios, including live-fire exercises to test precision targeting and maneuver, wet gap crossings, and distribution of prepositioned military equipment, according to the U.S. military.
A day earlier, Trump posted a photo of himself with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, writing that their relationship is good "despite the unfriendly look on this particular picture." North Korea's Foreign Ministry has called the U.S.-South Korean training "a rehearsal for an aggressive war" that is triggering a different level of instability in the region.
Trump met with Kim three times during his first term to discuss North Korea's nuclear program, most recently in 2019. Since returning to office, he has expressed interest in continuing those discussions.
This is not the first time Trump has sought to end the exercises. In his first term, he called the war games "provocative" and said, "We will be stopping the war games, which will save us a tremendous amount of money, unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should," after his 2018 meeting with Kim in Singapore.