US-ROK drills halved after Trump order

The Republic of Korea and the United States have cut the duration of their annual joint military exercise roughly in half following an order from US President Donald Trump.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, originally scheduled to run for 11 days through Aug 27, will now last five days and conclude on Aug 21 at the request of the US, Yonhap News Agency reported on Wednesday, citing the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff.

UFS is a summertime exercise involving command post and field training. The two countries label it as an effort to strengthen their combined defense posture and response capabilities.

The scale of this year's drills will also be adjusted, Seoul said.

"The ROK and the US agreed to discuss and carry out various measures going forward to achieve the objectives of the UFS exercise and establish a robust combined defense posture," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

On Sunday, Trump said he had instructed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to "substantially reduce" the joint military exercises with the ROK, citing his friendly relationship with Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The US Department of Defense said the adjustments would not degrade the exercise's training objectives.

ROK Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said on Wednesday that the government had not been informed in advance of Trump's directive to scale back the drills. However, he said the move did not amount to a unilateral notification as the defense minister had been involved in the discussions.

Chung Dong-young, the ROK's unification minister, also expressed support for Trump's order. "I hope this leads to dialogue between the US and the DPRK and further extends to improved inter-Korean ties," he was quoted by Yonhap as saying.

Lam Peng Er, head of the Korea Centre and principal research fellow at the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, told China Daily that Trump was essentially sending Kim a strong signal in hopes of reviving their in-person engagement.

Trump's desire to re-engage with the DPRK leader is also driven by his eagerness for a major foreign policy breakthrough in his second term, especially amid his frustration over the situation in the Middle East, Lam said.

During his first term from 2017 to 2021, Trump met Kim three times: in Singapore in 2018 for their historic first summit, in Vietnam in 2019, and at the Korean Demilitarized Zone later that year in an impromptu third meeting.

Following the 2018 summit, Trump also suspended and scaled back joint military exercises with the ROK.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Trump is pushing aides for a meeting with Kim as soon as this fall. Trump has privately discussed holding the meeting during his next trip to Asia, which "could happen in November", the Journal reported, citing US officials.

Stronger position

However, with the DPRK now in a stronger economic and diplomatic position than during Trump's first term, Lam said the US will need to offer more tangible incentives to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, including lifting sanctions.

It will also be important for the US to work with China and Russia in the process, he said.

Park Won-gon, a professor of DPRK studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told Agence France-Presse that scaling back the exercises could improve prospects for US-DPRK dialogue.

Suspending US-ROK joint exercises has always been a prerequisite for the DPRK to engage in dialogue with the US, he said.

In February, Kim said his country could get along with the US if Washington respects its current status and drops the "hostile policy".

While the DPRK has made no official statement on Trump's overture, the Korean Central News Agency commented on Wednesday that the UFS exercise poses the most immediate and open threat to the DPRK and regional security.

The DPRK will continue to exercise its right to self-defense and counter "threatening maneuvers", it said.

kelly@chinadailyapac.com