SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 17: US-South Korea drills began as scheduled Monday on the Korean Peninsula after US President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon to substantially reduce the annual exercise.
Trump announced the directive on Truth Social late Sunday in Washington, corresponding to early Monday in Pakistan. He said it was “too late to cancel” the training and instructed US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to reduce participation, without identifying affected units or operations.
The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise runs through August 27 and involves about 21,000 personnel, including 18,000 South Korean troops, according to the Associated Press.
South Korea’s Ministry of National Defence said the exercise would proceed according to its announced schedule. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon had publicly detailed the scale of the ordered reduction by early Monday.
Colonel Ryan Donald, public affairs director for the US-led military commands in South Korea, said the training included responses to drones, GPS disruption and cyberattacks. He linked those scenarios to capabilities North Korean troops gained while fighting alongside Russia in Ukraine.
Trump called the exercises costly and said they sent a hostile signal to North Korea. He cited his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and said President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea had declined a request to join US efforts to “denuclearise” Iran.
Read: South Korea Scrambles Jets After Chinese, Russian Planes Enter KADIZ
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry called Ulchi Freedom Shield a rehearsal for war and threatened unspecified countermeasures. South Korean and Japanese military officials said Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile from its east coast on August 12, six days after another short-range launch.
Lee is scheduled to meet Trump in Washington on August 25 while the exercise is still underway, according to the Associated Press.
