[Anchor]
U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a substantial reduction in the scale of the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises. Analyses suggest this may be an attempt to secure a diplomatic breakthrough for resuming North Korea-U.S. dialogue amid the quagmire of the war in Iran.
Reporting from Washington, this is correspondent Lee Hanseok.
[Reporter]
At 6:00 AM on the very day the South Korea-U.S. joint exercise, Ulchi Freedom Shield, began, U.S. President Donald Trump made public his decision to scale down the drills.
He stated on his social media that while it was too late to cancel them entirely, he had instructed the secretary of defense to significantly reduce the scale of the exercises.
Highlighting his very good relationship with Chairman Kim Jong Un, he wrote that the drills not only cost a tremendous amount of money but also send a hostile signal to a country that, since he became president, has not threatened the United States and has respected it.
Trump stoked expectations by posting a photo of his impromptu meeting with Kim at Panmunjom, emphasizing that they are on good terms.
[Donald Trump / U.S. President (April 7): North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un and I are getting along well. You know that he has said very good things about me, right?]
While joint South Korea-U.S. exercises were suspended or scaled back immediately following the North Korea-U.S. summit in Singapore in 2018, this marks the first time he has publicly ordered a reduction since the launch of his second term.
What stands out is that Trump first proposed a drastic reduction of the joint drills, to which North Korea has reacted sensitively, denouncing them as war rehearsal exercises for invasion.
This is interpreted as a calculation to elicit a positive response from North Korea—which has been moving closer to China and Russia while showing little interest in dialogue with the U.S.—through a visible concession.
Analysts suggest that if this leads to substantive outcomes such as a suspension of ICBM provocations or the resumption of North Korea-U.S. dialogue, it could provide a vital diplomatic breakthrough for President Trump ahead of the November midterm elections, amidst the six-month-long quagmire of the war in Iran.
Mentioning that it was somewhat off-topic, Trump also expressed his displeasure, revealing that he had asked the South Korean president whether South Korea would join in denuclearizing Iran, only to be told the offer was declined.
(Photo courtesy of Park Eun-ha | Video Editing by Jung Seong-hun)
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