U.S. and South Korea Prepare to End Military Exercises After Summit With North Korea

After a summit intended to solidify the relationship between President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, the U.S. and South Korea are preparing to end their large-scale military exercises as a move towards North Korea’s denuclearization.

This is part of the agreement between the two leaders to dismantle the country’s nuclear program, which was short in specifics and demonstrated a large compromise on the part of the Trump administration.

South Korea was caught off guard by the signed promise and had to reach out to the U.S. to re-arrange their strategy.

In fact, the decision was so rushed that U.S. officers in North Korea did not know how to proceed immediately after the announcement and had not been trained on how to stop the drills.

North Korea’s Supreme Leader stated that the cancellation of the United States’ military exercises as a requirement for the agreement with Trump.

It has been reported by Reuters that both the U.S. and South Korea are ready to reformulate their plans if North Korea fails to denuclearize.

The agreement will only affect military exercises themselves, not the training or planning for other potential military engagements.

The specific commitments which both countries will have to make moving forward are still not clear. Both leaders signed a document to confirm Kim’s commitment to North Korea’s denuclearization. The document also confirmed the security support that the U.S. will give through that process.

Even Donald Trump himself remarked that the meeting was not targeted to achieve a result on denuclearization, but to create a partnership between the two leaders and to ease tensions between the two countries.

At a press conference which followed the talks, the President mentioned that the denuclearization process was at its very early stages, and chose to focus on how the relationship between the countries will change in the future.

This set of actions have been some of Trump’s most important diplomatic decisions thus far, and are a strong departure from the attitude that he displayed during his campaign.