President Donald Trump doubled down on his rationale for reducing joint military exercises with South Korea, saying Monday that he was miffed at the U.S. ally for refusing to help the United States in its conflict against Iran.
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Trump said Sunday that he had directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” military drills with South Korea, citing his “very good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.”
On Monday, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said his decision stemmed from a conversation he’d recently had with the South Korean president, asking him “to give us a little hand” with defending the Strait of Hormuz.
“He said, ‘No, thanks,’” Trump recalled. “And I said … we have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong Un, your next-door neighbor, and you’re not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran? … I see. Well, why are we involved in helping you?”
Trump said the disagreement mirrored one of his consistent gripes about U.S. allies — that Washington pays considerably to protect others but doesn’t get enough in return. Trump’s critics say that he is fundamentally wrong and that U.S. allies contribute significantly to the cost of bases that allow Washington to project power around the world.
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“We’re guarding them from a country … that’s costing us billions and billions of dollars to protect not only them, but other countries,” Trump said of South Korea. “Look at NATO. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars protecting Europe from Russia, hundreds of billions, mostly from Russia, but from other things, too. And then they say, well, they don’t want to get involved with guarding the strait where they get most of their oil.”
Over the weekend, Trump underscored that affinity by sharing a photograph of the two men in which Kim appeared to glare at a photographer while Trump looked at him with a stern expression.
“Despite the unfriendly look on this picture, there are many where we’re smiling, Kim Jong Un and I get along GREAT!,” Trump wrote.
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