A major joint exercise between U.S. and South Korean troops will end a week earlier than originally planned after President Donald Trump directed that it be scaled back, a Pentagon official confirmed.
The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise began on Monday shortly after Trump posted on social media that he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the U.S. military’s involvement in the training event, which he described as “costly.”
The exercise had originally been scheduled to last until Aug. 27, but the Pentagon official confirmed it will now be completed on Friday.
“Based on direction from the President and Secretary of War, the Department has substantially reduced Exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield while continuing training that enhances tactical capability,” the Pentagon official told Task & Purpose. “The exercise will conclude on August 21, one week earlier than scheduled. Associated live-training events have been reduced, with certain events canceled or converted to simulations.”
The official added that the changes are meant to “preserve essential readiness and training objectives,” adding that there will not be any “degradation” to the U.S. military’s training objectives.
South Korean defense officials have said the two countries agreed to shorten the exercise at the request of the United States.
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Originally, this year’s exercise was expected to last 11 days and focus on emphasizing cyber and electronic warfare, drone tactics and other modern weapons systems. North Korea sternly objected to the training event last week.
Trump wrote in his Sunday social media post that he had decided to curtail the U.S. military’s participation in the joint exercise because it was “too late to cancel” the event. He later told reporters that his decision came partially as a result of a recent conversation he had with South Korea’s president Lee Jae-Myung.
Trump said that Lee told him that South Korea did not want to take part in U.S. military operations against Iran.
“I said, ‘Well, why are we involved in helping you?’” Trump said at a Monday news conference.
Initially, the implications of his order were unclear. On Monday, a Pentagon official said that the department was “actively working on executing the Commander-in-Chief’s directive” but did not elaborate on what that meant. At the same time, South Korea said the exercise was “proceeding as planned.”
Lt. Gen. Scott Winter, deputy commander of the United Nations Command in Korea, had previously called this year’s iteration “bigger and better than ever.”
The move to ultimately scale down the exercise comes after the U.S. military ordered the one carrier strike group in the region to the Middle East. The USS George Washington had been operating in the South China Sea but was directed to head to the Middle East to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been at sea for more than 200 days and has spent months in the region supporting the Iran war and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
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