The US and South Korea will end Ulchi Freedom Shield on Friday, five days into an 11-day drill

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday that Ulchi Freedom Shield will now end on Friday. The summer drill with the United States began on Monday and was supposed to run 11 days, through 27 August. Five days is less than halfway.

The cut follows a Sunday post by Donald Trump, telling the Pentagon to "substantially reduce" the exercises. He called them costly, said they sent a "totally inappropriate and hostile" signal to North Korea, and added that Kim Jong Un had been "unthreatening and respectful." He also wrote that he had asked South Korea's president to join the United States in the "denuclearization" of Iran, "and they said, 'No thanks!'"

Seoul's statement was careful. Duration and scale were adjusted "following the U.S.'s suggestion." The Pentagon said live-training events had been reduced, with some cancelled or converted to simulations, and that there would be "no degradation to U.S. training objectives." About 18,000 South Korean soldiers were due to take part. The allies are still deciding which field drills survive.

This is not a new Trump instinct. After the 2018 Singapore meeting with Kim he called the war games "provocative" and said they would stop to save money. The difference now is that the exercise had already started, and the public reasons include a snub over Iran as well as the old line about Kim.

Ulchi Freedom Shield is one of two main annual drills the alliance uses to practise a war on the peninsula. If you cut it in half mid-exercise, you are telling Seoul, Pyongyang and Tokyo something at the same time. Sen. Mark Kelly called the move shortsighted. North Korea, days earlier, had called the drills a "rehearsal for an aggressive war," which is the language it uses every summer.

The timing is messy. South Korea, the United States and Japan detected two North Korean ballistic missiles earlier this month, the first such tests since late June. In May, Pete Hegseth was still praising Seoul for taking "primary responsibility" for peninsula security.

The reduced field-training list is still being written. Friday is the new end date, unless that moves again. Kim has said he holds "good personal memories" of Trump and could talk if Washington drops its "delusional obsession" with denuclearising the North. Whether any of this becomes a meeting, or just a cheaper drill calendar, is the open question.