{"id":13212305,"date":"2026-08-17T13:57:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T11:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T08:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T06:52:11","slug":"trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Cuts Korea War Games, Hails Kim"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid #0F1720;background:#fff;color:#0F1720;font-family:inherit;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;line-height:1;letter-spacing:0;text-transform:none;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:none;transition:background .15s,color 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else window.open(target, '_blank', 'noopener,width=680,height=560'); }\n    close();\n  }\n  var mq = window.matchMedia('(min-width:981px)');\n  function place(){\n    var t = document.querySelector('.mfsh-trigger[data-mfsh-placement=\"top\"]'), slot = document.querySelector('.mfsh-top-slot');\n    var meta = [].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('.et_pb_title_meta_container, .et_post_meta_wrapper .post-meta, .single .post-meta')).filter(function(m){ return m.offsetParent !== null; })[0];\n    if (!t || !slot) return;\n    if (meta && mq.matches) { meta.classList.add('mfsh-meta'); t.classList.add('mfsh-inmeta'); if (t.parentNode !== meta) meta.appendChild(t); var a = meta.querySelector('a'); if (a) { var pr = document.createElement('span'); pr.style.cssText = 'display:inline-block;width:0;height:0;vertical-align:baseline'; a.appendChild(pr); var base = pr.getBoundingClientRect().bottom; pr.remove(); var fs = parseFloat(getComputedStyle(a).fontSize) || 14, mb = meta.getBoundingClientRect().bottom; t.style.bottom = Math.max(0, mb - (base + fs * 0.12)) + 'px'; } }\n    else { t.classList.remove('mfsh-inmeta'); if (t.parentNode !== slot) slot.appendChild(t); }\n  }\n  if (document.readyState === 'loading') document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', place); else place(); window.addEventListener('load', place); if (document.fonts && document.fonts.ready) document.fonts.ready.then(place); window.addEventListener('resize', place);\n  if (mq.addEventListener) mq.addEventListener('change', place); else mq.addListener(place);\n  document.addEventListener('click', function(e){ var b = e.target.closest('.mfsh-trigger'); if (b) { e.preventDefault(); open(b.getAttribute('data-mfsh-placement') || 'top'); } });\n})();\n<\/script><!-- \/mfsh:top -->\n\r\n<p>Hours before American and South Korean troops were due to kick off one of the year&rsquo;s biggest military exercises, President Donald Trump told the Pentagon to shrink it &mdash; and named two reasons that had nothing to do with the Korean Peninsula: Kim Jong Un, and Iran.<\/p>\r\n<p>In a Truth Social post on Sunday, 16 August 2026, Trump instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to &ldquo;substantially reduce&rdquo; the joint drills, calling them expensive and a signal &ldquo;that is totally inappropriate and hostile&rdquo; toward North Korea. He tied the decision to his &ldquo;very good relationship&rdquo; with Kim &mdash; and to Seoul&rsquo;s refusal to join the American campaign to denuclearize Iran. He said he had asked South Korea&rsquo;s president to help, and got a blunt answer: &ldquo;No thanks!&rdquo;<\/p>\r\n<p>There was one problem. The exercise, Ulchi Freedom Shield, started on Monday anyway. Seoul&rsquo;s defense ministry said it was &ldquo;proceeding as planned.&rdquo;<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px;border-radius:8px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:18px\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px;line-height:1.8\"><li><strong>What:<\/strong> Trump orders the US military to &ldquo;substantially reduce&rdquo; joint exercises with South Korea<\/li><li><strong>Announced:<\/strong> Truth Social post, Sunday 16 August 2026<\/li><li><strong>Exercise:<\/strong> Ulchi Freedom Shield, the annual US&ndash;ROK drill, running 17&ndash;27 August 2026<\/li><li><strong>Order given to:<\/strong> Secretary of War Pete Hegseth<\/li><li><strong>Stated reasons:<\/strong> cost, a &ldquo;hostile&rdquo; signal to Pyongyang, warm ties with Kim Jong Un, and Seoul&rsquo;s refusal to help on Iran<\/li><li><strong>Seoul&rsquo;s response:<\/strong> drills are &ldquo;proceeding as planned&rdquo;<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Truth Social order<\/h2>\r\n<p>Trump did not soften it. The drills, he wrote, cost the United States a fortune and telegraph aggression to a neighbor he would rather keep on side. Scaling them back, he argued, would save &ldquo;big&rdquo; money. It was left to the Pentagon to work out what a shrunken exercise actually looks like &mdash; a question nobody in Washington could answer on Monday.<\/p>\r\n<p>The timing was the sharpest part. American <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/f-22-raptor\/\">F-22 Raptors<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/f-16-fighting-falcon\/\">F-16s<\/a> have rotated through Korean bases like Osan for decades, and Ulchi Freedom Shield is exactly the kind of large-scale event that puts that airpower on display. Ordering it cut on the eve of kickoff was less a policy tweak than a message.<\/p>\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/pacaf-viper-demo-osan-korea.jpg\" alt=\"US Air Force F-16 of the PACAF Viper Demonstration Team over Osan Air Base, South Korea\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A US Air Force F-16 of the PACAF Viper Demonstration Team over Osan Air Base. US and South Korean airpower have trained side by side for decades. US Air Force photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Iran connection<\/h2>\r\n<p>The strangest thread runs through Tehran. Trump linked the Korea decision to the 2026 war with Iran, saying he had invited Seoul to join the US-led push for Iranian denuclearization and been turned down flat. Punishing an ally on the Korean Peninsula for a choice it made about the Middle East is unusual even by the standards of this White House &mdash; and it is the part allies in Asia will study most closely.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ywV9sgNqdy8\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Seoul shrugs and drills anyway<\/h2>\r\n<p>Ulchi Freedom Shield is not one exercise but many &mdash; a command-post simulation stitched together with field training and civil-defense drills, held under that name since 2022. This year&rsquo;s edition is scheduled to run 11 days, to 27 August. South Korea&rsquo;s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed it began on schedule Monday, with no mention of the Washington directive. The alliance, for now, kept marching.<\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #d32f2f;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;What you&rsquo;re seeing is the North Koreans are getting an advantage &mdash; really an unforced error on our part.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Col. Cedric Leighton, USAF (Ret.)<\/strong> &mdash; CNN Military Analyst<\/div><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A gift for Kim?<\/h2>\r\n<p>Critics see an own goal. Joint exercises are how the US and South Korea keep two very different militaries able to fight as one; thin them out and readiness erodes, slowly and invisibly, until the day it matters. Analysts warned the move hands Pyongyang exactly what it has demanded for years &mdash; and asks nothing in return. Trump has bet that goodwill with Kim is worth more than a fully rehearsed alliance. Seoul, drilling through the noise, is not so sure.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-style:italic;color:#777;font-size:14px;margin-top:24px\">Sources: CNN; Washington Post; NBC News; NPR; PBS NewsHour; Al Jazeera; Axios; Reuters; CBS News. Event dated 16&ndash;17 August 2026.<\/p>\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/south-korea-scrambles-kadiz-china-russia-aircraft-2026\/\">South Korea Scrambles Jets as China and Russia Probe Its Air Defense Zone<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/north-korea-air-force-kpaaf-mig-29-ghost-fleet\/\">Inside North Korea&rsquo;s Ghost Air Force<\/a><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Share this story Hours before American and South Korean troops were due to kick off one of the year&rsquo;s biggest military exercises, President Donald Trump told the Pentagon to shrink it &mdash; and named two reasons that had nothing to do with the Korean Peninsula: Kim Jong Un, and Iran. In a Truth Social post [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":13211838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[664,670],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13212305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-aviation","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Trump Cuts US-South Korea Military Drills, Hails Kim<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Trump orders the Pentagon to substantially reduce US-South Korea military drills, citing ties with Kim Jong Un and Seoul\u2019s refusal to help on Iran.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump Cuts US-South Korea Military Drills, Hails Kim\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Trump orders the Pentagon to substantially reduce US-South Korea military drills, citing ties with Kim Jong Un and Seoul\u2019s refusal to help on Iran.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Afterburner - 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