Trump said later that the exercises, which the allies have carried out for decades as a show of strength, were too “provocative” and “expensive” and would be postponed.
“We will be stopping the war games, unless and until we see that the future negotiation is not going along as well as it should,” Trump said during a press conference after the summit.
“We’ll be saving a tremendous amount of money. We fly in bombers [from a US base] in Guam. I said, when I first thought it, ‘Where are the bombers from? Guam. Six-and-a-half hours,” the president said.
“That’s a long time for these big massive planes to be flying to South Korea to practice and then drop bombs all over the place. I know a lot about airplanes; it’s very expensive.”
