America's Retreat from Global Stage Continues Under Trump

In a recent foreign policy move, Commander Donald J. Trump ordered Pentagon troops to “substantially reduce” long standing military exercises with South Korea, which were instituted in 1955 in response to the ongoing North Korean threat to its southern neighbor. Steadfast U.S. support of South Korea has had substantial bi-partisan support since the Eisenhower administration and has been an important plank in the South Sea Asian-U.S. policy in containing both the threat posed by North Korea and China. While rethinking long-standing policy orientations can be an effective strategic exercise, Trump’s impulsive move was anything but that. It was too late for the Pentagon to eliminate annual summer exercises this year, which is Trump’s stated intent for upcoming years. In making this initial move, strategist, Trump is in danger of threatening the long-standing alliances the U.S. has had with South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. In so doing, this could cause the former two countries to initiate their own nuclear capability to protect them from the very real threat posed by North Korea as well as China, since U.S. military strength in the area will become increasingly unreliable and weakened as a result of Trump’s impulsive actions.

 Trump’s stated reasons for the reduction was his annoyance at South Korea for not assisting the U.S. in its war of choice against Iran and his desire not to anger the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un who, he contends, “he has very good relations with” (Salon.com, 8-23-2026). Further noting that Un had been “unthreatening and respectful” (NYT, 8-16-2026) during his presidency and wanting to restore the relationship he had with Un during his first term, Trump expressed displeasure “that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military exercises with South Korea” (NYT).  To recall, Trump did meet with Un three times during his first term for the stated purpose of getting North Korea to denuclearize. That effort utterly failed. If anything, North Korea has significantly ramped up its nuclear capabilities since the initial visits in 2018 and 2019, notwithstanding the exchange of “love letters” between the two leaders.

 Clearly with Trump, one cannot discount the exaggerated importance he attributes to personal relationships, particularly with authoritarian leaders like Un, Xi Jinping, President of China, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, and former Premier of Hungary, Viktor Orban, the darling of the U.S. political right.

 As the same time, it would be difficult not to consider the incalculable damage the dubiously initiated war against Iran has made on the depletion of weaponry, equipment, and the military budget of the U.S. It is this that needs to be factored into the military pullback in South Korea, as well as in Europe, and the diminution of military resources to Ukraine in its valiant effort to fight off the Russian juggernaut. Recall that it was Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 that was negotiated during the Obama administration in 2015 as the single-most policy failure that led to the expansion of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The current war is a response to a crisis that was the result of Trump’s own doing. 

Let the irony of that sink in.

 Any wrongly entered war has an incalculable impact on a nation’s credibility and capability to carry out a strategically effective foreign policy. This is especially so for such a consequential nation like the United States which has significant interests throughout the world. In this case, the necessity of concentrating military resources in fighting the war in Iran for an unanticipated six-month period played a major role in the U.S. limiting its military contribution to Ukraine, which, under the Biden administration provided the backbone to military support for that beleaguered nation. The fact that North Korea is supplying Russia with troops while Russia is providing its partner with technical military aid should not be lost on the attentive reader in assessing that country’s friendliness to the U.S.

 While Trump, from the beginning of his second term, leaned toward supporting Putin’s view of the war rather than Zelensky’s, the excursion into Iran played a significant role in removing much of the U.S. military and economic imprint to Ukraine, thereby, extending the war. Now with Trump pulling back in South Korea, he is threatening the viability of the South China Sea security partnerships and alliances that the U.S. has worked on for decades. The objective of these associations is to bolster the region’s security and economic independence, providing a bulwark against the potential expansion of China as well as the military threat a nuclearized Noth Korea poses for South Korea, and by extension, neighboring areas.

 In explaining how he makes foreign policy-based decisions, Trump referred to his own mind and morality as his ultimate arbiter of public authority. The time is at hand for a far broader frame of reference for establishing a sound foreign policy, especially for a nation as consequential as the United States of America.