US, South Korea shorten military drills at Trump's request

The South Korean and U.S. militaries have agreed to shorten their joint military drills at Washington's request, South Korean officials said on Wednesday, days after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a reduction in the exercises.

The allies' annual summertime exercise, Ulchi Freedom Shield, began on Monday as an 11-day event. It will now end on Friday instead of August 27, according to the South Korean military. The two sides also agreed to reduce some joint field training exercises, though officials did not specify which components were scaled back.

Trump, who ordered the Pentagon to "substantially reduce" the drills, cited his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea's refusal to join a U.S. campaign against Iran. The order came just before the exercise began, leaving allied planners to adjust schedules at short notice.

Ulchi Freedom Shield is primarily a computer-simulated command post exercise designed to test the allies' ability to respond to regional security threats, including North Korean aggression. Field training exercises are typically held alongside it to maintain battlefield readiness. The decision to shorten the exercise marks the latest adjustment to the U.S.-South Korea training calendar, which has seen periodic reductions over the years to accommodate diplomatic efforts with Pyongyang.

During the period of rapprochement in 2018 and 2019, the allies suspended or scaled down several large-scale exercises to create space for negotiations with North Korea. This time, however, the reduction was initiated by Trump's order, and the South Korean military confirmed the shortened schedule on Wednesday. The two sides also agreed to downsize some joint field training exercises.

The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war. The U.S.-South Korea alliance was forged in that conflict, and the joint drills have served as a central pillar of the alliance since then. Many experts say Trump's move threatens to hurt combined U.S.-South Korean readiness and eventually weaken this long-standing partnership.

North Korea has long denounced the drills as a rehearsal for invasion and has responded with provocative missile tests in the past. On Wednesday, its state news agency, KCNA, published commentary slamming the U.S.-South Korean military drills as "frantic" and "extremely dangerous," vowing to completely frustrate what it called the rivals' hostilities. There was no immediate response from North Korea to Trump's overture.

Analysts say Kim, emboldened by his advancing nuclear program and expanding military cooperation with Russia, is unlikely to embrace Trump's outreach anytime soon unless he is promised bigger concessions. Last year, Kim suggested he would return to talks only if the U.S. dropped its demand for a North Korean denuclearization as a precondition for diplomacy. That position remains a key obstacle to any resumption of negotiations.

Trump and Kim met three times from 2018 to 2019, but their high-stakes diplomacy eventually fell apart over wrangling about a North Korean demand for extensive sanctions relief in return for limited denuclearization steps. The shortening of Ulchi Freedom Shield is likely to be watched closely in the region, as North Korea has consistently called for a halt to joint exercises as part of any arms-control discussion.