President Donald Trump’s order to shorten allied exercises with South Korea to avoid sending “inappropriate and hostile” signals to Pyongyang jolted Seoul with immediate implications. But for Japan, the move raises longer-term uncertainties about how Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration will adjust its North Korea policy and manage its alliance with the United States. On Sunday night in Washington, Trump posted on social media that he was ordering an immediate reduction to the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise that had been scheduled to take place over the next two weeks on the Korean Peninsula.
He clarified that it was “too late to cancel” while noting that his view is that the exercises are “too costly” and send the wrong messages to a Kim Jong Un regime that “has been unthreatening and respectful” as long as he has been president. In the same post, he mentioned that South Korea declined an invitation to support efforts in the Middle East — a point he doubled down on with the press on Monday. Trump said that it was “strange” that South Korea would not provide support to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open despite the U.S. contributions to Korea’s defense and the country’s reliance on oil trade through the critical waterway.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
