President Donald Trump’s social media post on August 16 calling for a substantial reduction in U.S.-South Korea military exercises triggered panic across partisan lines. Instead of just pointing to the high costs of the exercises and unnecessarily hostile approach towards North Korea, Trump also highlighted his “very good relationship with Kim Jong Un” and chastised South Korea for refusing to join the disastrous U.S.-Israel war on Iran. Attacks came from Republicans, including North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who defended South Korea as “a solid military ally for over 70 years,” but then made the bizarre claim that reducing joint war drills frees up North Korean troops “to support Putin’s” war on Ukraine.
Democrats, naturally, piled on, attacking Trump for undermining yet another major ally to side with an authoritarian leader. Hillary Clinton, the champion of the failed policy of “strategic patience” during the Obama administration, posted: “The president is making US policy friendlier to North Korea and Russia than Canada and Oman. Are you kidding me?”
While any diplomatic overture from this administration should be viewed with skepticism — this is, after all, the same White House that condemned South Korea for declining to join its war against Iran — progressives shouldn’t …read more
Source:: Institute for Policy Studies
