On Sunday evening, a day before the exercises were scheduled to begin, President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to sharply curtail the joint military drills with South Korea. On Truth Social, he pointed to his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the expensive nature of the exercises as justification for scaling back the training. He also noted South Korea’s reluctance to support the United States in its conflict with Iran, describing that issue as only tangentially related to his decision to reduce the drills. Lyle Goldstein, director of the China Initiative at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs and director of the Asia program at Defense Priorities, appeared on “Forbes Newsroom” to discuss the development.
View the complete interview above.
