The annual joint military exercises between South Korea (South Korea) and the United States will come to an abrupt end on Friday (August 21).
The "Ulchi Freedom Shield" exercise, which involved 18,000 South Korean soldiers and 11 other U.S. allied countries, was suspended when only half of the scheduled course was completed. A few days ago, US President Donald Trump announced that he had ordered the Pentagon to "significantly scale back" the exercise.
Trump called the drills "inappropriate and hostile" to North Korea and costly to the United States. His revelation came as a surprise to allies.
Seoul's Foreign Minister Cho Hyun sought to portray the decision as mutually agreed upon, but acknowledged that officials had no prior knowledge of Trump's intention to scale back the drills.
The move has also unsettled countries such as Taiwan and Japan that have long relied on the United States for regional security guarantees.
Trump also criticized Seoul for refusing to participate in actions against Iran and said he expected to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year.
While South Korea has long wanted Trump to engage with Kim to maintain diplomatic dialogue, it does not want such engagement to be accompanied by demands for cash and pressure to assist Iran-related military operations.
Korea-U.S. Alliance
Seoul views annual joint drills with the United States as the core of the alliance and a demonstration of U.S. commitment to defend it against threats from Pyongyang.
Although South Korea has been willing to scale back or suspend drills in the past to entice North Korea to restart peace talks, Trump's unilateral and sudden decision to withdraw troops early has shaken South Korea's confidence in the United States as an ally, according to Cho Bijuan, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
The outside world is concerned that Trump may go further, reduce the size of the 27,000 US troops stationed in South Korea, and even abandon his long-standing policy of promoting North Korea's denuclearization. These decisions may be made without consulting allies.
Since the two sides did not sign a peace treaty after the end of the Korean War (Korean War), North and South Korea are still technically at war. Until Kim Jong Un abandons this idea in 2024, reunification with South Korea has always been an important part of North Korea's ideology - although this goal is increasingly unrealistic.
Even so, threats against South Korea never cease. Just days before the military drills began, North Korea launched ballistic missiles in the direction of Japan and reiterated its right to use nuclear weapons if the country is threatened. On Thursday (20th), Pyongyang launched more missiles.
What worries South Korea even more this time is that the Trump administration no longer treats security and trade issues separately. Trump said he was dissatisfied with South Korea's refusal to join his war with Iran and with its performance as a trading partner.
His government complained that the US$1 billion (6.72 billion yuan; NT$31.8 billion) provided by South Korea each year for the expenditure of US troops stationed in South Korea was not enough; it also accused it of delaying the implementation of the promised US$350 billion investment and discriminating against US companies operating locally.
Now that the trade dispute is turning into a national security issue, some are calling on South Korea to reduce its reliance on the United States.
Zheng Chengzhang, vice chairman of the Sejong Institute, advocates that South Korea develop nuclear weapons on its own. He said Seoul must maintain its alliance with the United States but at the same time "take steps to acquire its own nuclear deterrent capabilities."
Although most South Koreans support South Korea's possession of nuclear weapons, the government has always believed that acquiring nuclear weapons is neither necessary nor likely to damage its alliance network. This thinking may change if the United States further withdraws from Asia.
Meanwhile, South Korea has been trying to find upsides from Trump’s decision to end military drills early.
President Lee Jae-myung, who has been seeking to repair relations with North Korea, posted a message praising Trump on the social platform X.
He wrote: "I believe that President Trump's message this time is a major decision, which contains careful consideration for the Korean peninsula to move beyond hostility and confrontation and move towards peace."
Lee pledged to increase defense spending and said he "completely agrees" with Trump that South Korea should shoulder its own national security responsibilities.
Since Trump’s first term, Seoul has viewed his seemingly erratic approach to diplomacy as both a risk and an opportunity. Through a combination of flattery and blind optimism, Seoul managed to secure the first historic meeting between the sitting US president and Kim Jong-un in 2018.
However, just after the meeting, Trump suddenly announced the suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea.
In 2019, when Kim Jong Un refused to give up all his nuclear facilities, Trump walked out of the second meeting without reaching an agreement. After the brief but symbolic meeting between the two men in Panmunjeom later that year, the leaders of the two sides did not engage in any substantive negotiations.
Kim Jong-un is strong
After those summits, it was Seoul that bore the brunt of Pyongyang’s wrath. North Korea blew up the inter-Korean liaison office on its territory and later vowed to cut off all communication.
North Korea has also introduced new laws that make sharing South Korean movies and TV shows punishable by death and written the right to use nuclear weapons into its constitution.
At the same time, Trump has always insisted that he maintains a "good relationship" with Kim Jong-un, telling reporters on Wednesday (19th): "He likes me."
But Kim Jong-un's powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong, issued a statement saying she was unaware of Trump's claims that her brother had recently contacted him, adding: "I'm afraid this is the only thing I don't know about the foreign policy of our country's supreme leader."
She also reiterated North Korea's position, saying that it would never give up nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons would help enhance the balance of power and stability in the region.
Kim Yo Jong also said that scaling back joint exercises with South Korea "we do not think is worthy of comment and have no interest" and did not change its "essence of provocative and offensive military exercises," state media quoted him as saying.
While Trump has said he will meet with Kim before the end of the year, few experts believe another summit will happen, especially as Kim is benefiting from an alliance with Moscow and strengthening ties with China. Unless Trump is prepared to publicly accept North Korea as a nuclear power, which is a core demand of Pyongyang, North Korea has no incentive to participate.
The scaling back of the drills is already a major concession in itself, not just for Pyongyang but also for Beijing, which also sees the drills as a threat to its security.
It could also open the door to further demands from North Korea, which appears to be militarily stronger.
