South Korea’s military said Wednesday it will cut the length of an annual joint exercise with the United States by roughly half, after President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to scale back the drills and, according to a report, pushed to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as soon as this fall.
The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which was originally scheduled to run through Aug. 27, will now take place from Aug. 17 to Aug. 21, according to a statement from South Korea’s armed forces.
The decision follows a directive from Trump on Sunday evening, just before the exercise was set to begin, ordering Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to “substantially” reduce the scope of the joint military drills.
Trump seeks another summit with Kim
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Trump is pressing his aides to arrange a meeting with Kim as soon as this fall, in an effort to revive the personal diplomacy the two leaders first engaged in during Trump’s first term, when they met in Singapore in 2018.
According to the Journal, Trump has privately discussed holding an in-person meeting with Kim during his next trip to Asia, likely in November, when he is expected to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China.
The move marks the latest escalation of Trump’s outreach to Pyongyang, and it has unsettled a 70-year alliance with South Korea that was already strained by the transfer of wartime operational control and Seoul’s refusal to back U.S. efforts on Iran.
Originally, the allies had planned 14 combined field-training programs alongside this year’s command-post exercise, which was to involve about 18,000 South Korean troops, according to the Associated Press.
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/south-korea-trump-military-drills-exercise-north-korea-kim-jong-un-.html
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