Trump's order to scale back US-South Korea drills draws bipartisan backlash

Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office at the White House on Monday (local time). [AP]

Donald Trump's order to sharply curtail joint US-South Korea military exercises has drawn a wave of criticism from across the American political spectrum.

Republican Sen. Tom Tillis posted on X on Monday (local time), saying South Korea "has been a steadfast US military ally for over 70 years with exceptional military capabilities," and that scaling back joint exercises with Seoul "only helps thousands of North Korean troops support Putin's systematic abduction, torture, rape and murder of innocent Ukrainian civilians."

The criticism reflects concern that reducing the exercises would ease pressure on North Korean forces, freeing them to provide greater support to Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.

Tillis is a two-term Republican senator. He faced pressure to drop his reelection bid after opposing Trump's tax-cut legislation last year, and ultimately chose not to seek a third term.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [AP]

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who ran against Trump as the Democratic Party candidate in the 2016 presidential election, also joined the criticism.

Clinton posted on X, saying Trump "is changing American policy to be more favorable to North Korea and Russia than to Canada or Oman," and added bluntly: "Are you kidding me?"

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, also issued a statement condemning Trump's order to scale back the exercises as "another reckless decision."

Sen. Jack Reed, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee [AP]

Reed argued that if Trump "reduces joint exercises to curry favor with a dictator, or punishes South Korea for not joining a war he started, both our allies and our adversaries will conclude that America's commitments are negotiable."

He went on to say that "Kim Jong-un has scored a propaganda victory, and South Korea — one of our strongest allies — has been punished for no reason other than Trump's ego," and warned that "China and Russia are watching how easily Trump abandons America's alliances, and they will remember this when they decide to test us."

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia also weighed in, asking whether Trump "thinks the problem is our ally South Korea, which wisely refused to join his catastrophic war with Iran, even as North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile," and adding, "It doesn't get any better than this for Kim Jong-un."

Democratic members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee posted on X, saying "Trump's Iran war is failing disastrously" and criticizing the decision to scale back joint exercises with South Korea — a 70-year ally — because Seoul refused to support what they called an illegal war.

They added that "the alliance with South Korea makes America safer, but Trump is undermining it."

The statements from the Senate Armed Services Committee's ranking Democrat and House Foreign Affairs Committee members signal that lawmakers regard the matter as serious. Foreign policy and national security issues in Congress are handled primarily by the foreign affairs and armed services committees in both chambers.

Trump announced Monday on his Truth Social platform that he had directed the defense secretary to significantly scale back joint US-South Korea military exercises, while also expressing displeasure that South Korea had not cooperated with his Iran war effort.

mokiya@heraldcorp.com