President Donald Trump stoked alarm on Sunday after he adhered to a foreign dictator’s demands to reduce U.S. military exercises with South Korea.
Read more Trump bows to ‘unthreatening and respectful’ dictator in stunning move
Trump announced on Truth Social that he had directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to reduce the scale of the joint military exercises conducted between the U.S. and South Korea. The move came just days after North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un described the exercises as a threat to his regime, and promised to escalate retaliatory threats in response.
“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” Trump wrote.
Trump’s announcement rankled political analysts and observers across the political spectrum, some of whom shared their reactions on social media.
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“God help us,” Ken Gardner, a political commentator, posted on X.
“North Korea just provided Russia with thousands of missiles to attack Ukraine. Russia is working with Iran to murder U.S. citizens,” Laura Loomer, a MAGA influencer, posted on X. “I wouldn’t exactly call North Korea unthreatening and respectful, personally, now that we know Russia has been giving weapons and satellite imagery to Iran to kill U.S. soldiers.”
“Helping North Korea even as they send 50,000 troops to help Putin. Almost seems as if it’s coordinated. Almost seems as if Vladimir Putin is acting as the White House chief of staff,” Norman Ornstein, a contributing editor at The Atlantic and a political scientist, posted on X.
“Russia before Ukraine and now N Korea before S. Korea. We have now lost international credibility,” Jeff Storobinsky, host of the “In Front of Us” podcast, posted on X.
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