{"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":"2026-08-17T13:58:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T11:58:27","slug":"trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/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>\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 data-opt-id=628379874  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:SYRg.cd14\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/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>\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\/jetflights\/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\/jetflights\/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>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 on Sunday, 16 [&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 v28.2 - 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\/jetflights\/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\/jetflights\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Afterburner - MiGFlug&#039;s Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MiGFlug\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-17T11:57:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-17T11:58:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:SYRg.cd14\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/us-rok-f22-osan-korea.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"686\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joseph Duncan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@migflug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@migflug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joseph Duncan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Joseph Duncan\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b969321b26faa21775f0c40e141cdf85\"},\"headline\":\"Trump Cuts Korea War Games, Hails Kim\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-17T11:57:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-08-17T11:58:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":710,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/jetflights\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/sites\\/4\\/2026\\/08\\/us-rok-f22-osan-korea.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Military Aviation\",\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/\",\"name\":\"Trump Cuts US-South Korea Military Drills, Hails Kim\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/jetflights\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/sites\\/4\\/2026\\/08\\/us-rok-f22-osan-korea.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-17T11:57:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-08-17T11:58:27+00:00\",\"description\":\"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.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/trump-cuts-us-south-korea-military-drills-2026\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/jetflights\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/sites\\/4\\/2026\\/08\\/us-rok-f22-osan-korea.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/jetflights\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/sites\\/4\\/2026\\/08\\/us-rok-f22-osan-korea.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":686,\"caption\":\"Four U.S. Air Force F-22 \\\"Raptor\\\" fighter aircraft from Kadena Air Base, Japan, fly over the skies of South Korea, in response to recent provocative action by North Korea, Feb. 17, 2016. 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