President Donald Trump shocked the world — and thousands of American troops practicing for war with North Korea — when he declared Sunday that he was shrinking military exercises already in progress with South Korea.
Why this time? Trump said on his social media platform that his decision was “based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un” and because he felt the “costly” exercises “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.”
Trump is unilaterally rejecting American intelligence threat assessments, military preparedness and history. He’s also getting nothing in return for it.
Did North Korea write that message?
With no intelligence, data or proof provided to back up his assertion, Trump appears to be blindly trusting that North Korea’s murderous, prison-state regime has turned a page toward global peace. With that choice, Trump is unilaterally rejecting American intelligence threat assessments, military preparedness and history. He’s also getting nothing in return for it. That’s his prerogative as commander in chief.
Indeed, this isn’t the first time. Trump is resurfacing an old issue and gambit from his first term. The president has long wanted South Korea and other allies to pay a greater share for their defense, including the military exercises required to ensure it. In 2018, after meeting Kim, Trump surprised the Pentagon by halting regular military exercises with South Korea. After much global criticism and criticism inside and out of the Pentagon, the exercises resumed, but they were scaled back.
This time, based on his language that it was “too late to cancel” the exercises, Trump appears to suggest he was surprised to learn that U.S.-South Korean military exercises were about to be underway again. The cost of this abrupt reduction — in dollars, diplomacy, readiness and morale — will be substantial. We need to know what advice Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State (and National Security Adviser) Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and National Intelligence Director Jay Clayton gave the president. I’m sure Pacific Command’s Adm. Samuel Paparo and United States Forces Korea’s Gen. Xavier T. Brunson would like to know.
At best, Trump is playing with fire. At worst, he is willfully endangering American lives, interests and influence for the chance at saving money, based on nothing but a gut feeling.
On the one hand, we would all love a world where North Korea does not threaten South Korea, Japan or any other country, particularly where we have economic and security interests. Even better, we’d love North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons, open its borders, hold free and fair elections, declare democracy and join the international community in peace.
On the other hand, that’s not reality. There is zero reason to believe anything North Korea says when it comes to its intentions. The Korean War technically never ended. Those who’ve led this regime are serial deal breakers, just ask the United Nations.
If Trump is just looking to save money, he could just cut back on exercises and say he just doesn’t want to pay for them anymore, without giving Kim credit for nonexistent good behavior. There are many good arguments for shifting some of that funding and attention: the Iran war is taking too long, the Ukraine war is taking too long, the drug war, border security, economic security, anything. Trump could just say that the way of warfare has changed so drastically — as Iran and Ukraine have made clear — that today’s friendly militaries need different kinds of training. All of those are true.
But nobody has declared North Korea less of a threat to the U.S. or South Korea — and for good reason. “North Korea’s ICBMs can already reach US soil, and the IC assesses that it is committed to expanding its nuclear arsenal,” said Tulsi Gabbard. That was before she resigned as DNI and when she was delivering the 2026 threat assessment to the Senate in March. “The IC assesses that an increasingly confident North Korean regime remains a source of concern regionally and globally. Its weapons of mass destruction, its conventional military capabilities, illicit cyber activities, and demonstrated willingness to use asymmetric capabilities pose a threat to the US and its allies, particularly South Korea and Japan.”
The U.S. has about 28,500 troops in South Korea and 55,000 in Japan, all within range of Kim’s missiles, but little understanding of when or where he may launch them. The U.S. historically has less intelligence on North Korea than on any other adversary. That’s why U.S. Forces Korea lives by the phrase “fight tonight.” Deploying American troops into that region that are undertrained and underprepared would be dereliction of duty.
If Trump wants to stand down U.S. troops, he can do that. If he wants to reduce training, he can do that. If he wants to reduce deployments, weapons and funds, he can do that, too. But the White House should provide a new threat assessment justifying those moves based on facts and analysis: to the Congress, allies and the public.
Trump is always hunting for a bargain, but U.S. security is nothing to bargain with. America’s forward-deployed military presence and preparedness with allies including South Korea and Japan are what allow people to live in peace and prosperity there, so that we can do so here. It’s not charity. It’s not a gift. It’s a security umbrella. It’s a multibillion-dollar investment and insurance policy on American prosperity. And it’s the best leverage the world has to deter North Korea from doing something catastrophic.
On Sunday, Kim got another unearned gift courtesy of the U.S. president: A free pass to never change.
Kevin Baron is a national security analyst, founder of Elevation Global Strategies and host of Elevation Live!, a conversation series on global affairs, sports and culture. As a journalist and media executive, he has reported on politics, defense and foreign policy from the Pentagon to war zones for more than two decades, including as founding executive editor of Defense One and editorial director of POLITICO Live, and for Foreign Policy, Stars and Stripes, The Boston Globe, and other news outlets.
