South Korea Shortens Joint War Games With US, Cites Washington Request

Seoul (GNP): South Korea’s annual joint military exercises with the United States will conclude six days earlier than originally scheduled, after Washington requested a reduction in their scope, the country’s defence ministry has announced. The 2026 Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise will now end on August 21 instead of August 27, with Seoul confirming that the period and scale of the drills had been adjusted following a proposal from the US side.

The decision follows an announcement by US President Donald Trump that he intended to curtail joint exercises with South Korea, a move he tied to what he described as his very good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told a parliamentary hearing that neither South Korean nor American officials had prior knowledge of Trump’s plans before he made them public.

Seoul also confirmed that the combined field training component of the exercise will be partially reduced in scale, though specific details of that reduction remain under discussion between the two sides. The curtailment marks an unprecedented shift in the scope of the drills and raises questions in South Korea about the reliability of Washington’s defence commitments under the mutual defence pact that underpins the two countries’ security relationship. The decision is also likely to be watched closely by other US allies in the region, including Japan and Taiwan.

The announcement follows reports that US officials have said Trump is pressing his aides to arrange a meeting with Kim Jong Un. Writing on Truth Social over the weekend, Trump said the joint exercises are costly, with much of the expense borne by the United States, and argued that they send a signal he characterised as inappropriate and hostile. He further stated that he had asked South Korea’s president whether the country would join efforts related to the denuclearisation of Iran, and that the response he received was negative.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump directly linked his decision on the exercises to South Korea’s response on the Iran matter, noting that roughly 39,000 US troops remain stationed in South Korea to guard against North Korea, its neighbour, while Seoul had declined to assist with what he described as a straightforward military operation. Approximately 28,500 American military personnel are currently stationed in South Korea as part of the broader defence arrangement between the two countries.

The scaled-back exercise stands in contrast to plans announced by US and South Korean military leaders at a joint press conference held just last week, when officials said the drills would be similar in scale to previous years and would involve around 18,000 South Korean troops.

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During that briefing, military leaders also referenced North Korea’s deployment of troops in support of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, with a US military spokesperson stating that training plans account for that threat, referring to North Korean soldiers returning from the battlefield.

Following last week’s press conference, North Korea’s foreign ministry condemned the joint drills as a rehearsal for an aggressive war, a characterisation Pyongyang has repeated in response to previous iterations of the exercise.

Says Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, neither South Korean nor US officials had advance knowledge of the decision before Trump announced it publicly.