US Forces Korea soldiers move in front of military vehicles at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, on Monday, as South Korea and the United States began their annual combined exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS). [Yonhap]
US Forces Korea soldiers move in front of military vehicles at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, on Monday, as South Korea and the United States began their annual combined exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS). [Yonhap]

Shortly after ordering a reduction in joint US-South Korea military exercises, Donald Trump signaled a dramatic shift on the Korean Peninsula by boasting of his personal ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Experts raised the prospect of deepening "Korea passing" — the sidelining of Seoul in inter-Korean and US-North Korea affairs — and warned the move could disrupt the roadmap for transferring wartime operational control to South Korea.

The Pentagon said Monday it was "actively working to implement the commander in chief's directive" regarding Trump's order to scale back the combined exercises. The statement appeared to walk back an earlier Pentagon response telling reporters to "ask the White House," which had fueled speculation that the order caught the Defense Ministry off guard and exposed discord within the administration.

Yoo Ji-hoon, a research fellow at KIDA, said the scale of US participation in the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise, along with some field training exercises (FTX) and the deployment of reinforcement forces, could be reduced. "Particularly if such decisions are repeatedly made based on US political judgment without sufficient prior consultation with South Korea, the mutual trust underpinning the alliance and the predictability of the combined defense posture could be weakened," he said.

Inter-Korean relations could face a contradictory dynamic as a result. Scaling back the joint exercises may ease North Korean objections and create conditions for resuming US-North Korea dialogue, but Pyongyang has in effect designated South Korea as a separate hostile state and has not responded to Seoul's overtures for engagement.

Yoo said North Korea may calculate that negotiating directly with Washington is more effective than improving relations with Seoul. "As a result, the possibility of so-called 'Korea passing' — where US-North Korea dialogue resumes but inter-Korean relations stagnate — could actually grow," he said. The prospect of multilateral talks involving South Korea also remains uncertain.

Attention is also turning to whether Trump's order will affect the timeline for transferring wartime operational control. This year's UFS had been seen as the stage for effectively completing the full operational capability (FOC) verification of the Future Combined Forces Command, with the two allies expected to confirm a target year for the transfer at the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) around October. The allies had already reduced the number of FTX sessions during this year's UFS from 22 last year to 14.

Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute and a former vice minister of national defense, said Trump's order to sharply curtail the combined exercises "could seriously impede the verification process for the wartime operational control transfer." He added that while USFK and the Pentagon broadly support South Korea's pursuit of the transfer, they likely hold the view that rushing it by relaxing the conditions would not be desirable.

However, Shin said he did not believe Trump's North Korea policy would directly affect the operational control transfer. "In broad terms, if South Korea actively contributes to the United States, it may be possible to somewhat soften Trump's stance on the transfer," he said.

Meanwhile, Trump's order has drawn criticism from across the US political spectrum.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote on X that "if President Trump is cutting military exercises to curry favor with a dictator, or punishing South Korea for refusing to join a war he started, every ally and adversary will conclude that America's commitments are negotiable."

Reed went on to say that "Kim Jong-un won a propaganda victory, and South Korea — one of our strongest allies — was punished for no reason other than Trump's ego." He also warned: "China and Russia are watching how easily President Lee Jae-myung abandons America's alliances. They will remember this the next time they test us."

Criticism also came from within the Republican Party. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) wrote on X that "South Korea has been a steadfast military ally for over 70 years and possesses sophisticated military capabilities." He criticized the decision to scale back combined exercises with South Korea as "nothing more than freeing up thousands of North Korean troops who will support Putin in systematically kidnapping, torturing, raping and murdering innocent Ukrainian civilians."


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