Trump’s slight of South Korea in favor of the North raises broader US security concerns

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s decision to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea does not just slight a longtime ally but raises broader concerns concerning the security interests of the United States in Asia and elsewhere.

Trump explained his decision by citing South Korea’s refusal to join his war against Iran and pointing to what he said was his good relationship with North Korea’s reclusive dictator, a transactional and personal approach to foreign policy that has defined the Republican’s presidency.

“There is no American interest that I can see in this,” remarked Dan Fried, an assistant secretary of state for European affairs in the George W. Bush administration. “On all levels it makes no sense. It undermines the South Koreans, undermines the Japanese, frightens the Taiwanese, unnerves NATO and emboldens the Chinese, not to mention the North Koreans.”

Danny Russel, former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific in the Obama administration, said Trump’s decision to side with North Korea. It strongly objects to the annual joint military exercises, is “firmly in the ‘hard-to see-how-it-could-be-worse’ category.”

“It is tragically upside-down. Trump is punishing an ally while encouraging an adversary,” said Russel, now a scholar at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. “He is protecting Kim Jong Un’s sensitive feelings from an unfriendly signal at the expense of U.S.-South Korean security.”