Trump-Kim Summit
The military has no idea what to do with Trump's promise to end 'war games' in Korea
Among the conclusions reached at Tuesday's summit in Singapore, President Trump said, is that the U.S. will cease its "provocative" and costly "war games," the joint military exercises with South Korea that North Korea has long condemned as practice for conflict. But like the denuclearization pledge signed by Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, details on what this promise means functionally are sparse.
So sparse, in fact, that the military does not know what to change. U.S. troops in South Korea have "received no updated guidance on execution or cessation of training exercises — to include this fall's scheduled Ulchi Freedom Guardian," said a military representative, Lt. Col. Jennifer Lovett, in a Tuesday statement. For now, Lovett added, business will proceed as usual until new instructions are provided.
South Korea also expressed some confusion about what to expect moving forward. President Moon Jae-in's administration said it needs "to find out the precise meaning or intentions" of Trump's statement and will "explore various measures to help the talks move forward more smoothly."