As part of the agreement reached with North Korea’s leader Tuesday, President Trump agreed to halt annual joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises that provoke Pyongyang.
Mr. Trump announced after the meeting in Singapore that he will be freezing U.S. military “war games” with ally South Korea while negotiations with North Korea continue. He said it will save money for U.S. taxpayers, but he also noted that the exercises regularly rankle North Korea.
“It’s a very provocative situation,” he said. “Number One, we save money. Number Two, I think it’s something they very much appreciate [during the nuclear negotiations].”
Mr. Trump said the U.S. will not be removing any of its roughly 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea.
“No, we’re not reducing anything,” he said. “I want to bring our soldiers back home. But that’s not part of the equation right now. We will be stopping the war games, which will be saving us a tremendous amount of money.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.