On Monday President Trump held a press briefing at The White House. His guests of honor included hero lifeguard Ryder Williams from Santa Cruz who recently was caught on film rescuing 10-year-old Aaron Bohnen at Seabright State Beach in California.
President Trump honors hero lifeguard Ryder Williams at the White House. – WH screengrab
On Sunday, President Trump dropped a foreign-policy bombshell, ordering Secretary Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce the massive joint military exercises set to begin with South Korea on Monday.
In a blistering Truth Social post, Trump said the long-planned drills are too expensive for American taxpayers and send an unnecessarily hostile signal to North Korea, a country he said has remained “unthreatening and respectful” during his presidency.
Trump also pointed directly to his personal diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, invoking their “very good relationship” as a reason to pull back the exercises.
On Monday President Trump was asked about his comments on Kim Jong-Un during his press conference.
He absolutely unloaded on South Korea and its China-friendly president in his response.
President Donald Trump: South Korea has been protected by us for many, many years. And during my first term, they agreed to pay close to $3 billion a year for protection because we don’t— you know, they essentially weren’t paying. And I asked them to do that at my request… They weren’t happy about it, but they agreed.
I asked for $10 billion and they were very unhappy. But we agreed for a short term that it would be $3 billion. The next year would go up and the next year would go up. So they start paying for their protection. When the election was rigged and I ended up watching for 4 years and then coming back, I watched Biden rescind that $3 billion for whatever reason.
When I called recently, the President of South Korea, who I like, I think he’s very nice actually. But I called him. I said, would you like to give us a little hand? We don’t need help with Iran, but if you’d like, give us a hand with Iran. He said, no thanks. And I said, wait a minute, we have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong-un, your next door neighbor. And you’re not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran? That’s strange. No, no, we’d rather not get involved. I say, well, why are we involved in helping you?
So, and I want to help them. But, you know, when you ask somebody, would you like to give us a hand? And they say, no thanks. And then we’re guarding them from a country and paying ourselves billions of dollars, costing us billions and billions of dollars to protect not only them, but other countries.
Look at NATO. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars protecting Europe from Russia. Hundreds of billions, mostly from Russia, but from other things too. And then they say, well, they don’t want to get involved with getting, you know, guarding the Strait where they get most of their oil. They get 50% of their oil and they don’t want to get involved. Why are we doing it?
So all I want is fairness.
And South Korea, I get along with them very well, but they were paying $3 billion a year. And then they convinced Biden that I was probably a bad person and they shouldn’t. And he immediately rescinded that order. So we were getting paid. We would have been getting paid a lot more, but we can’t go around and protect all of these countries, especially when they’re not there to help us.
Here is the video via ACYN.
Trump: South Korea has been protected by us for many, many years. When I called recently, the president of South Korea and I said, “Would you like to give us a little hand?” We don’t need help with Iran, but if you’d like, give us a hand with Iran. He said, “No, thanks.” And I… pic.twitter.com/JxHvc1CqPp
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 17, 2026
The post “All I Want is Fairness” – President Trump UNLOADS on South Korea – Explains Why He Reduced This Week’s Joint Military Exercises (Video) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
