The US military and South Korea are planning to announce the end of annual large-scale military exercises as President Donald Trump pursues efforts to improve ties with North Korea, a US official said Friday.
Repeatedly branded by Trump as too costly, the exercises are being curtailed as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to ease tensions with North Korea.
The comment from the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, came shortly after the conclusion of Trump’s second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, which ended without a formal agreement but with both sides suggesting they will keep talking.
In South Korea, a government official suggested the drills would be downgraded rather than scrapped entirely.
“If we define the size of the drills solely by the number of the soldiers, then yes, the exercises will likely be smaller,” the official told said. The two sides are still discussing the wording of a joint statement that is expected to be released in the coming days, the official added.
NBC News first reported that the Foal Eagle drills-which usually take place in the spring-would be scrapped, citing two unnamed US defense officials.
Foal Eagle is the biggest of the regular joint exercises held by the allies, and has always infuriated Pyongyang, which condemned it as preparations for invasion. In the past, it has involved 200,000 South Korean forces and some 30,000 US soldiers.
It overlaps with the Key Resolve exercise.
Since Trump’s first summit with Kim last year in Singapore, the US and Seoul have scaled back or scrapped several joint military drills, and US bombers are no longer flying over South Korea.
President Trump has complained repeatedly over the cost of the drills, describing them at the Hanoi summit as “very, very expensive”. NBC reported that the annual exercises would be replaced with “smaller, mission-specific training.” The Republican president however has ruled out withdrawing any of the 28,500 US forces based in South Korea to defend it from its nuclear-armed neighbor, which invaded in 1950.
Any such drawdown would face strong pushback from the US Congress and Japan, whose conservative government is deeply wary of North Korea’s intentions.
After weeks of building expectations and with a signing ceremony ready to go, President Donald Trump abruptly ended his second-ever meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and declared a deadlock.
The United States and North Korea put forward starkly different accounts over the breakdown of a high-stakes summit in Hanoi, with Pyongyang warning it would not put more on the table.
“Sometimes you have to walk and this was just one of those times,” an unusually downbeat Trump told reporters.
“Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that,” Trump said before flying back to Washington.
But in an exceptionally rare meeting with reporters, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho summoned the press in Hanoi at midnight and denied the White House account that Pyongyang was only seeking a complete deal.
North Korea had offered to “permanently and completely dismantle all the nuclear production facilities” at its main complex in Yongbyon if the US dropped sanctions “that hamper the civilian economy and the livelihood of our people”, Ri said.
He warned that the North’s stance was “invariable” and that its offer will “never change”, even if the US proposes more negotiations in the future.
The North Koreans appeared to be looking to make their case to the world after Trump insisted that he could obtain a better deal.
“I’d much rather do it right than do it fast,” Trump told reporters, reaffirming his “close relationship” with Kim.
“There’s a warmth that we have and I hope that stays, I think it will.”
