Should Taiwan be worried after Trump drops support for South Korea?

President Trump has discovered, painfully, that Iran is no Venezuela.  

His brilliantly executed military operation partially decapitating a criminal South American regime could not easily be replicated against a far more powerful adversary in the Mideast — especially when it is actively supported by nuclear-armed China, Russia and North Korea. More ominous than the current Iran stalemate itself, Trump and his advisers have over-learned that geopolitical lesson and misapplied it to other confrontations with America’s enemies.  

Last week, Trump walked back a key element of America’s security commitment to the Indo-Pacific. “Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea,” said Trump, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea.” 

He directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to curtail U.S. participation in the exercises the two nations have carried out for decades. The drills are conducted in accordance with the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty that is identical to the U.S. treaty executed with Taiwan the same year, after the end of the Korean War. Trump indicated it was a form of payback for Seoul’s decision not to participate in the current U.S. operations against Iran.   

Trump also said the joint drills are an unnecessary and provocative expense since Kim Jong Un has been “unthreatening and respectful” during his presidency. In one fell swoop, he gave North Korea the major concession Kim, his father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, have sought and been denied by 14 presidential administrations of both parties. Trump did not suggest that the exercise freeze is related to allegations of U.S. munitions shortfalls related to the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine, but both allies and adversaries can conclude that the United States is overstretched in this multifront........

© The Hill