Trump's Trials - Trump orders Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

President Trump ordered the Pentagon to scale back its joint military exercises with South Korea because the country declined to help with the Iran war, citing his relationship with North Korea. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's terms. I'm Scott Detrow. The president has both an ability and a willingness to use the power of his office, to think outside the box. Nobody makes a better deal than President Trump. We're going to do better and better and better. Nobody can believe what they're watching. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's recent coverage of the 47th president.

With a focus on ways his administration is pushing the boundaries of presidential power. Here's the latest from NPR. From NPR News, I'm Sasha Pfeiffer. President Trump says he wants the U.S. to scale back military cooperation with one of its allies, South Korea. He posted this online within hours of the planned start of joint exercises between the two countries. Trump's comments may be an olive branch to North Korea in the hopes of restarting diplomacy with North Korea that began and then stalled in Trump's first term. And Fares Anthony Kuhn reports from Seoul.

In a social media post, President Trump, Trump said that joint drills with South Korea are costly and send a hostile message to North Korea. He added that he has a good relationship with the North's leader Kim Jong-un. And he expressed disappointment that South Korea had declined to help the U.S. with operations against Iran. South Korea's presidential office said it hopes that friendly relations between Trump and Kim will lead to meaningful dialogue between their two countries. But Trump's orders came as a shock to people waking up in Seoul. I was really surprised that it came at this stage, which is right on the day of the start of the exercise.

Chanienbaum is a retired South Korean Army Lieutenant General. He says such concessions to North Korea will be taken not as a goodwill gesture, but as a sign of weakness. If you want to talk to the North Koreans and have them come to the table, all you have to do is say, okay, we give up, and we acknowledge that you are a nuclear weapon state. And they'll come to the table and they will want many things. President Trump also scaled back military drills in 2018. He held three summits with Kim Jong-un, but they failed to reach a deal, and the talks fell apart in 2019.

Chan Inbaum notes that Trump's move is likely to be welcomed by the progressive administration of South Korean president E. J. Myeong. He wants to engage with North Korea, but so far, Pyongyang has rejected his conciliatory words and gestures. President Trump, meanwhile, has continued to speak favorably about Kim Jong-un. Returning from a summit in China, and in May, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that there had been no recent progress in reviving Stahl diplomacy with Kim. We'd have a good relationship with him. He's been respectful of our country. The Trump administration's 2026 National Defense Strategy says North Korea poses a nuclear threat to the U.S. homeland, as well as to allies South Korea and Japan. General Chon Inbaum says Trump's message could have an impact on the debate in South Korea,

on whether to continue to rely on the U.S. for defense against North Korea's nuclear weapons, or whether to develop their own deterrent. Your traditional allies and greatest supporters of the alliance, they will naturally want their own capability to have nuclear weapons. South Korea's Defense Ministry says that 10 days of joint U.S. South Korean military drills began as planned. Anthony Kuhn in PR News, Seoul. A note before we go, if you value this show and want to help keep it going, A free and totally easy way to support us is to rate and review Trump's terms on the platform where you listen in a world of algorithms that goes a long way toward helping us reach new listeners.

If you have left a review in the past, thank you so much. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.