![\"'39,000](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-133311433,imgsize-115305,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg\" "\\"Trump")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nUS president Donald Trump has put fresh strain on Washington\u2019s security ties with Seoul, saying South Korean president Lee Jae Myung declined a request to assist the US in its military operation against Iran. Trump also questioned the cost of America\u2019s defence commitments to South Korea.Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump said he had recently spoken with Lee and asked whether South Korea would \u201cgive us a little hand\u201d with Iran, while stressing that Washington did not need assistance.\u201cI called him. I said, \u2018Would you like to give us a little hand? We don\u2019t need help with Iran, but if you\u2019d like, give us a hand with Iran.\u2019 He said, \u2018No thanks,\u2019\u201d Trump said.Trump then pointed to the US military presence in South Korea and its role in deterring North Korea. \u201cI said, \u2018Wait a minute. We have 39,000 soldiers over there, guarding you from Kim Jong Un, your next-door neighbor, and you\u2019re not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran. That\u2019s strange,\u2019\u201d he said.Trump said Lee reiterated that Seoul did not want to become involved in the Iran conflict. He questioned the rationale behind continued US defence commitments to South Korea.\u201cI said, \u2018Well, why are we involved in helping you?\u2019\u201d Trump said.The US president said he nevertheless wanted to support South Korea, while arguing that the financial burden of protecting allies had become excessive.\u201cWhen you ask somebody, \u2018Would you like to give us a hand?\u2019 and they say, \u2018No, thanks,\u2019 and then we\u2019re guarding them from a country and paying ourselves billions–it\u2019s costing us billions and billions of dollars to protect not only them, but other countries,\u201d Trump said.He also referred to NATO, saying the US spends \u201chundreds of billions\u201d of dollars on the alliance.Meanwhile, Lee Jae Myung called for stronger independent defence capabilities, while defending the country\u2019s annual civil-defence exercises held alongside joint US-South Korea military drills as defensive and not intended to threaten North Korea.The country had on Monday also expressed hope for a resumption of US-North Korea diplomacy to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula, hours after Trump announced that he had ordered the annual US-South Korea military exercises to be scaled back.Trump\u2019s remarks came after he instructed secretary of war Pete Hegseth to \u201csubstantially reduce\u201d joint military exercises with South Korea.Meanwhile, in a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was \u201cnot happy\u201d that the US had previously agreed to participate in the exercises.\u201cBased on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea,\u201d Trump said.Trump described the drills as costly and said they send a signal that is \u201ctotally inappropriate and hostile\u201d to North Korea, which he said had been \u201cunthreatening and respectful\u201d during his presidency.Trump said it was too late to cancel the exercises altogether but ordered a reduction in their scale.\u201cTherefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!\u201d he said.Meanwhile, South Korea had said on Monday that it was closely consulting with Washington on ways to make practical and military contributions to international discussions on a ceasefire in Iran and efforts to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.<\/div>\n Trump hits South Korea over Iran. Photo credit: Agencies US president Donald Trump has put fresh strain on Washington\u2019s security ties with Seoul, saying South Korean president Lee Jae Myung declined a request to assist the US in its military operation against Iran. Trump also questioned the cost of America\u2019s defence commitments to South Korea.Speaking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-31"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","blogsy-small":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","blogsy-small-tall":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","blogsy-small-square":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","blogsy-small-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","blogsy-medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","blogsy-medium-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","blogsy-large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg","blogsy-wide":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Trump hits South Korea over Iran. Photo credit: Agencies US president Donald Trump has put fresh strain on Washington\u2019s security ties with Seoul, saying South Korean president Lee Jae Myung declined a request to assist the US in its military operation against Iran. Trump also questioned the cost of America\u2019s defence commitments to South Korea.Speaking […]","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":1,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":4,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg",400,225,false],"medium":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg",300,169,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/trump-says-south-korea-refused-iran-help-orders-pentagon-to-cut-drills.jpg",150,84,false]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/author\/admin"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"