What Trump's cold shoulder toward South Korea means to our allies
The Hill · C · trust 53/100
Comments: by Dov Zakheim, opinion contributor - 08/21/26 10:30 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Dov Zakheim, opinion contributor - 08/21/26 10:30 AM ET Comments: Link copied Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Japan’s Minister of Defense Koizumi Shinjiro. President Trump’s decision to cut roughly in half the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises with South Korea, along with his desire for a fourth meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, has caused considerable consternation among Washington’s key allies in the Far East.
On a visit to Australia, Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi indirectly reflected his unease with Trump’s decision when he stated , “As Japan faces the most severe and complicated security environment in the postwar era, the cooperation among Japan, the U.S. and South Korea is critical to the peace and stability of the region.”
Koizumi’s response to Trump’s action repeated almost verbatim the words of his introduction to the 2026 white paper “Defense of Japan,” in which he added, “In the Indo-Pacific, not only are China and North Korea further strengthening their military capabilities, China-Russia and Russia-North Korea are also reinforcing their cooperation.”
The white paper also stated that “North Korea’s military activities pose an even more grave and imminent threat to Japan’s national security than ever before.”
Koizumi’s Australian host, Richard Marles, said much the same thing, leaving no doubt that Australia has a starkly different view of North Korea from Trump’s. He observed that Canberra “is very concerned about North Korea’s nuclear program as well as its missile program, and we have consistently made that point.” And he termed South Korea “a critically important country,” for his country and for the trilateral relationship among Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Left unstated on the part of both defense ministers was a concern about America’s reliability as an ally. The announcement of the cutback in the U.S.-South Korean exercises follows the redeployment of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington from the Western Pacific to the Middle East, leaving East Asia without an American aircraft carrier presence for the second time since 2024 , when the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its battle group first joined the battle group that had already been on station in the Middle East.
With no end in sight to the Iran war, it remains unclear how long there will be no carrier deployed in East Asia. Moreover, it appears that while officially assigning highest priority to East Asia after defense of the American homeland, the redeployment of the carrier to the Middle East is a sign that Washington’s priorities on paper do not match its actual concerns.
China has officially taken a nuanced position regarding the cutback in the joint U.S.-South Korean exercises as well as Trump’s desire to meet yet again with Kim. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jiang simply stated that “maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and advancing the political settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue serve the common interests of all parties.” Yet surely not coincidentally, only days after Trump’s announcement, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was to make his first visit to Seoul in five years.
Beijing cannot but view Trump’s announcement with some satisfaction. Indeed, China’s state run media have been considerably less circumspect than the government itself about Trump’s decision reflecting his unhappiness with Seoul’s refusal to support actively the U.S. operation against Iran. The Xinhua News Agency asserted that this is “a stock method the U.S. government uses when pressuring allies ... [that] reveals US frustration resulting from policy deadlock on the Korean Peninsula and over Iran.” Xinhua added that “such an alliance system is bound to continuously erode and gradually head toward disintegration.”
China’s view that the American alliance system is beginning to fray is likely premature, but it does have some basis in current reality. Trump’s dissatisfaction with South Korea — and with Japan, for that matter — mirrors his unhappiness with America’s NATO allies. His tariff policy and complaints that European and East Asian allies had not committed sufficient resources for defense preceded the onset of the American operations in the Middle East.
To these prior complaints, Trump has now added criticism of the allies for not actively supporting the ongoing Iran operation.
Trump may rightly feel that any understanding he reaches with Kim will reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia more generally. But coupling his desire to meet the North Korean dictator again with the cutback in joint exercises with South Korea sends the wrong message both to America’s allies and to Beijing — and Russia, for that matter, which has also become a major Japanese concern .
Even if the current exercises remain truncated, Trump could still elect to let future exercises run their planned course. This would not only reassure nervous allies but also strengthen his hand if his meeting with Kim actually were to take place.
Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.
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