Trump says he will meet Kim Jong-un later this year after ordering Pentagon to scale back South Korea drills

President Trump said Wednesday that he will meet later this year with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as questions persisted in Seoul about how far the United States would go in adjusting joint military activities with South Korea. The statement came only days after Trump directed the Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea, a shift that South Korean officials and defense-linked observers said risked weakening the visible deterrent effect of the alliance at a sensitive time on the peninsula.

The Washington Times reported that Trump’s comments were framed around the expectation of direct engagement with Pyongyang, with the administration portraying the exercise changes as part of a broader diplomatic effort. The remarks also underscored a timeline in which the president is seeking summit-level contact with Kim before the year ends, rather than limiting engagement to working-level channels.

South Korea’s response, according to the report, was marked by careful messaging designed to avoid open confrontation, reflecting the sensitivity of alliance adjustments. While Seoul has voiced concern about U.S. recalibration of drills, the same reporting characterized South Korean reactions as restrained, with leaders balancing domestic expectations for defense readiness against the practical reality that Washington is still maintaining its alliance framework while altering exercise patterns.

The U.S.-South Korea exercises, typically conducted to validate command-and-control and readiness in contingency scenarios, have long served as a major report to both allies and adversaries. Trump’s order to scale back the drills therefore represents a tangible change to how the alliance demonstrates interoperability and readiness, even as public attention shifts to potential diplomacy with North Korea.

The report placed Trump’s new comments in the context of Seoul’s concern over the state of the alliance, highlighting the challenge of aligning deterrence posture with summit diplomacy. For South Korea, the exercise changes are likely to remain a recurring issue in alliance coordination, especially as South Korean officials weigh the political costs of appearing to accept reduced military visibility against the diplomatic gains that Washington may seek from engagement with Kim.

What happens next will likely depend on how the Pentagon and U.S.-South Korea defense establishments translate the president’s directive into specific adjustments to exercise scope and schedules. Any steps toward a Trump-Kim meeting later this year will also require sustained coordination on sequencing and indicates, because both Seoul and Washington have to manage deterrence, crisis stability, and alliance credibility while pursuing the possibility of talks with Pyongyang.