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# Kim Condemned the Exercises. He Didn't Thank Trump.
- URL: https://www.diplopolis.com/kim-condemned-exercises-didnt-thank-trump-north-korea-south-korea/
- Published: 2026-08-20T04:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-21T09:31:26.000Z
- Description: Trump reduced US-South Korea exercises to please Kim Jong Un. North Korean state media condemned the reduced exercises as the most immediate threat anyway. North Korea launched two ballistic missiles since. The gesture was made. The condemnation came.
- Author: Sunny Peter
- Tags: The Ledger, South East Asia, North Korea, South Korea, United States, US-South Korea Joint Military Exercises

North Korean state media [condemned United States and South Korean military exercises on Wednesday](https://www.npr.org/2026/08/18/g-s1-139096/s-korea-stresses-us-alliance-amid-confusion-over-trump-drill-cut?ref=diplopolis.com) as the 'most immediate and open threat' to Pyongyang's security. The condemnation was standard in its language — the same formulation North Korea uses each August when Ulchi Freedom Shield begins. What was not standard was what the statement did not say. It did not mention that Trump had substantially reduced the exercises four days earlier. It did not acknowledge the gesture. It offered no reciprocal language. Kim Jong Un's government received a security concession from the president of the United States and responded by condemning what remained of the concession.

On August 16, Trump directed Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce the joint exercises, citing his good relationship with Kim and his view that the drills send a signal that is 'totally inappropriate and hostile' toward North Korea. He described Kim as 'unthreatening and respectful.' He said he had recently called South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and asked if Seoul would help in the Iran war. Lee said no. Trump punished South Korea by reducing the exercises designed to protect it from Kim. He expected Kim to notice.

Kim noticed. His government's response — that the exercises remain the most immediate and open threat to North Korean security — treats the reduced exercises as indistinguishable from the full-scale ones. The signal Trump was trying to send by cutting the exercise's scope was not received by the audience for whom it was intended. North Korea has conducted two ballistic missile launches since August 6, even as Trump described Kim as unthreatening. South Korea must now operate a reduced deterrence rehearsal while facing the same North Korean military posture that preceded the reduction.

Trump was asked directly at the White House on Monday whether Kim had personally requested that the exercises be scaled back. The exchange ended with Trump telling a CNN reporter to be quiet and calling her 'fake news' when she pressed for an answer. He did not confirm that Kim asked. He did not deny it. The question of whether the US president reduced the deterrence exercises of a treaty ally at the personal request of a nuclear-armed adversary has not been answered by the president.

What is clear is the sequence: Trump valued his relationship with Kim sufficiently to describe him as unthreatening while North Korea builds new nuclear bomb fuel facilities, provides troops and missiles to Russia's war in Ukraine, and technically remains at war with South Korea. He valued that relationship sufficiently to punish an ally's refusal to join a war in Iran by reducing the exercises that protect the ally from its most immediate nuclear threat. And Kim's government, having received the reduced-exercise gesture, condemned the exercises as the most immediate threat anyway.

The policy has a clear logic: Trump believes personal relationships between leaders override institutional frameworks, treaty obligations and military postures. If Kim is treated as 'unthreatening and respectful,' the exercises that deter him become unnecessary and provocative. The problem is that North Korea's military posture is not governed by Kim's personal relationship with Trump. It is governed by North Korea's strategic interests, which include maintaining the credibility of its nuclear deterrent. Reducing the exercises is, from Kim's perspective, a marginal concession that does not require reciprocation. He took it. He then condemned what remained.

The gesture has been made. South Korea's deterrence rehearsal is smaller. North Korea's condemnation is unchanged. The relationship between Trump and Kim is, presumably, still very good. The security of 52 million South Koreans is somewhat reduced. The thank-you has not arrived and will not.