Trump cuts UFS drills as Kim summit push rattles alliance — Ep. 146

Yeah, so President Donald Trump, he is walking down another shitty path and saying that he's going to meet with Kim Jong-un.

But before that, he said on True Social on Sunday, before the annual summertime military drills between the United States and South Korea goes on.

The biggest

and most important one.

That he had ordered Secretary Hegseth to substantially reduce, quote unquote, the drills.

And what did he cite?

He cited his special or good relationship with Kim Jong-un and also the president of South Korea, Lee Jae-myung's apparent refusal to join efforts to denuclearize Iran.

And then he also mentioned like his usual spiel, like it's costly.

And the logic was if there is any, it was something like I'm in very good relations with Kim Jong-un.

And because of that, I'm very unhappy with how our forces are joining this very expensive military exercise was his logic adjacent.

Not really.

South Korea and the United States have their SMA going on, their Special Measures Agreement.

It's the 12th one that's been active since 2025, goes on for five years until 2030.

South Korea pays $1.5 billion, I think, yearly.

for the USFK and for these drills.

So it's not really a good assessment for President Trump or any assessment that he makes so far.

And not only that it reflects badly on Trump, it reflects badly on whatever plans that US and South Korea had in mind and probably was in progress when it comes to anything like OPCON transfer, new readiness posture, what to do with the FCFC, so on and so forth.

He did mention something like, I know it's impractical for the drills to halt completely.

So I asked Hexeth to reduce it.

But didn't UFS already start when he mentioned? It was on

the

eve.

That was crazy.

Yeah.

Because