In the night of August 17, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he had ordered the Secretary of the War Department, Pete Hegseth, to “drastically scale back” joint military exercises with South Korea, arguing that they were too costly and sent Pyongyang a signal that was “completely inappropriate and hostile.”
- The U.S. president lamented that it was “now too late to cancel [them],” while noting his “excellent” relations with Kim Jong-un.
- He then said he had recently invited the South Korean president to join the process of Iran’s “denuclearization,” but the response he received was: “No, thanks!” He added: “The reason I don’t want joint military exercises with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the United States that aren’t reimbursed to us.”
Initiated in 1976, the “Ulchi Freedom Shield” is an annual joint exercise designed to strengthen the maneuver capacity of the interservice forces on the Korean Peninsula, by simulating a Pyongyang strike.
- This year it was set to run for 11 days, from August 17 to 27, covering the entire Korean Peninsula, and involving about 18,000 South Korean troops, a figure similar to last year.
- The U.S. forces stationed in Korea did not disclose the number of soldiers participating in the exercise, with total personnel currently tallying at 28,500.
- Asked on Monday, August 17, about the consequences of the president’s announcement, an official of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the exercise “is proceeding as planned.” The Korean press expects an impact on the scope, method and schedule of future joint exercises “in the future” .
- Note that the two militaries had already communicated about this year’s exercise, highlighting a strategic shift in North Korea’s capabilities. A Joint Chiefs of Staff official explained that North Korean soldiers returning from Ukraine had gained real combat experience, which had altered Pyongyang’s operational capabilities, and that this training would fully take that factor into account .
Trump’s decision comes in an unprecedented strategic context, as the United States no longer has aircraft carriers in the Pacific.
- The USS George Washington left the Pacific in recent hours and is expected to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East.
- The carrier has been on a mission for more than 266 days without a break. Reports have repeatedly described sailors’ drowning-suicide attempts, shortages of hygiene and food supplies, and failures in the piping network.
This announcement appears, in several respects, incongruent with the policy pursued by the Trump administration.
- On Thursday, August 13, Donald Trump signed a memorandum aimed at revitalizing the American Navy, allowing foreign shipbuilders investing in the United States to build up to two ships in their home country. Hanwha Ocean, the only South Korean shipbuilder with a shipyard in the United States (the Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia), was named as the direct beneficiary of this measure.
- South Korea had been designated a “model ally” on January 26 by the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, due to its new national defense doctrine. Seoul had also announced in 2025 a record increase in its defense spending.
As Shashank Joshi of The Economist notes: “It is normal for U.S. alliances to be tested during periods of divergence in foreign policy. It is absolutely not normal, however, for the United States to subordinate its security guarantees—along with the elements that support them, such as troop deployments and military exercises—to the participation of its allies in the wars it chooses to fight.”
- The United States’ National Defense Strategy published on January 24, 2026, makes the defense of American territories and interests in the Western Hemisphere an absolute priority, while the Indo-Pacific region appears only as a secondary concern.