President Donald Trump has directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea, citing his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and describing the drills as costly and unnecessarily provocative.

In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said he was not happy that the United States had long ago agreed to participate in the exercises, arguing that much of the cost falls on Washington and that the drills send a signal that is hostile to a country he described as unthreatening and respectful throughout his time in office.

He said it was too late to cancel the drills entirely, so he had instructed Hegseth to substantially reduce their scale instead.

The directive comes a day before the U.S. and South Korea were set to begin Ulchi Freedom Shield, an annual large-scale exercise that has run under that name since 2022, evolving from decades of earlier summertime drills between the two militaries.

This year's edition was expected to include a live-fire exercise, a river crossing drill and the distribution of prepositioned military equipment, before Trump's order to pare it down.

Trump also linked the decision to a separate matter, saying he had recently asked the President of South Korea whether the country would join the United States in efforts to denuclearize Iran, only to be turned down.

He described the connection between the two issues as "somewhat unrelated," posing the observation as a rhetorical question in his post, even as he raised it in the same message announcing the drawdown.

The move follows a pattern from Trump's first term, when he similarly moved to scale back joint exercises with South Korea after his 2018 summit with Kim in Singapore, at the time citing cost savings and a desire to ease tensions with Pyongyang.

Trump has met Kim three times in total, in Singapore, Hanoi and at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, though the two leaders have not met during his current term.

On Saturday, a day before the latest announcement, Trump had posted a photograph of himself with Kim, remarking that despite an unfriendly expression in that particular picture, the two got along well.

Reaction from lawmakers was swift. Republican Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska said it takes time to repair the kind of strain such decisions create with allies, adding that training exercises sharpen American forces and that both countries lose when they stop training together. He also described Kim as erratic and North Korea as among the worst places to live in the world.

Analysts have pointed to North Korea's deepening ties with Russia and China as a factor giving Kim greater leverage in dealings with Washington, even as Trump continues to leave the door open to renewed diplomacy with Pyongyang.

The Pentagon and South Korean officials had not issued a joint statement detailing the specific scope of the reductions as of the time of this report, and it remained unclear how the scaled-back exercises would affect this week's scheduled drills.