On Sunday evening, just hours before the annual US-South Korea “Ulchi Freedom Shield” exercises were set to begin, Donald Trump issued an order to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to significantly scale back US participation. In his Truth Social post, he wrote:
“Given my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, I am not thrilled about the United States having long agreed to participate in joint military exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only expensive, with most of the cost being covered by the United States of America (as usual!), but they also send a completely inappropriate and hostile signal to a country that, while Donald Trump was President, behaved peacefully and respectfully. […] I have instructed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce the scale of the joint military exercises!”
Trump also mentioned that he had recently asked South Korea’s president whether they would like to join the US in denuclearizing Iran and received a “No, thank you!”
For those who followed his first term, this is not improvisation. In June 2018, right after the Singapore summit, Trump already suspended major drills, calling them “provocative and very expensive.” In 2019, he repeated: “the reason I do not want military exercises with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the US, which we are not reimbursed for.” This week’s decision is not a glitch but a return to an old logic: personal ties with Kim Jong Un outweigh alliance rituals.
What “Ulchi Freedom Shield” Actually Is
The exercises, running from August 17 to 28, are one of two main annual drills (the other is the springtime Freedom Shield). This year, about 18,000 South Korean troops were supposed to take part. In 2025, there were 17 battalion-level field exercises; this year that number had already been cut to 14 even before Trump’s intervention.
The content of the 2026 maneuvers reflects lessons that North Korean military personnel are taking from Ukraine: according to Seoul, the program includes counter-drone operations, GPS spoofing defense, and cyberattack response. Pyongyang, as usual, responded with rhetoric about “invasion rehearsals” and a series of ballistic missile launches in early August.
The Aircraft Carrier as a Symptom
Trump cites Kim, money, and Iran. But the real reason lies elsewhere — and it’s called the USS George Washington.
The carrier “George Washington,” the only permanently forward‑deployed US flattop in the western Pacific, is currently being transferred to the Persian Gulf to relieve the “Abraham Lincoln.” And “Lincoln” has been at sea for over 250 days — a record without port calls — with crew mental health issues, food shortages, and broken life‑support systems. As a result of the redeployment, the Indo‑Pacific region will temporarily have zero US aircraft carriers.
This is not a diplomatic gesture. It is a symptom: the US can no longer simultaneously keep a carrier off the Korean peninsula, fight Iran, and contain China. Resources for three theaters simply do not exist, and the decision on the exercises is only the visible part of a systemic overload.
The Iran Refusal: Ally or Vassal?
Trump mentioned South Korea’s refusal to join the Iranian denuclearization effort almost in passing, but it is not incidental. According to South Korean sources, the request involved political support and logistics, not troop deployment. Yet for Seoul, any involvement in a Middle Eastern conflict is toxic at home: it jeopardizes economic ties with Iran and triggers public protests. The refusal became a convenient pretext for Trump — and at the same time a marker that US and South Korean interests are drifting further apart.
A Blow to the Alliance
Cutting back drills does not affect the permanent troop presence (28,500 US soldiers remain in South Korea), but it hits trust and the fine‑tuning of joint procedures. Exercises are the synchronization mechanism, especially critical given the long‑standing debate over the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON). Currently, Seoul holds peacetime control (since 1994), but wartime command remains with the US; the transfer is planned on a “conditions‑based” timeline, which requires well‑exercised joint procedures. Scaling back drills puts not only the timeline but the very ability of the alliance to act cohesively in question. The South Korean opposition is already using this episode against President Lee Jae‑myung’s administration, casting doubt on the reliability of the US security guarantee.
The Geopolitical Tail
For China — a temporary window with no US carrier in the region. Beijing can use it to flex muscle in the South China Sea and around Taiwan. For Russia — confirmation that the US cannot simultaneously maintain high pressure on both the European and Asian fronts. For Europe — an indirect signal that the American umbrella may not hold if a second front opens.
The Obama‑era “Pivot to Asia” was built on a structure of NATO + Ukraine on one side and South Korea + Japan + Taiwan on the other. Trump is dismantling that structure not out of strategic revision but out of tactical necessity: money and ships are insufficient for everything. An impulsive foreign policy, easily steered by outside lobbies, leads to the system failing precisely where it was least expected.
The task for those on the other side of this failure is clear: while Trump is distracted by the Middle East, the window must be exploited to the fullest. The Far East can be left to Chinese comrades. But Europe will have to be squeezed by Russia — and here both military and economic steps matter equally. The Pax Americana is cracking. And the crack does not start in the Persian Gulf or the Taiwan Strait. It starts when the president of the world’s most powerful nation writes on social media that joint drills with an ally are too expensive and too hostile for his “very good friend” in Pyongyang.
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