GOP lawmaker urges Trump to restore South Korea military drills

Christina Ruffini and David Gura, Bloomberg News on Aug 22, 2026

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A Republican lawmaker questioned President Donald Trump’s decision to cut short a joint military exercise with South Korea, saying the US should show more allegiance to a longtime Asian ally.

The U.S. and South Korea agreed to curtail this month’s military drills after Trump ordered a reduction of such joint exercises in a social media post that cited his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“I hope it’s temporary,” Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia said Saturday on "Bloomberg This Weekend." South Korea should be kept “closer to us, not to other countries who are basically invested in communism,” he said.

McCormick, a U.S. combat veteran and member of the House Armed Services Committee who says he spent time with South Korean troops on his foreign tours, said integration with foreign allies is “very good for our force projection.”

“They see the world similarly,” he said of South Korea. “They have one enemy, one fight.”

While Trump “has a lot more information than I do,” McCormick said “I’m not sure what all played into that decision” on the military exercise.

Trump on Sunday described the drills as an “inappropriate and hostile” signal to North Korea and suggested he was frustrated that South Korea had declined to help with the Iran war he started in February.

After Trump’s announcement, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the allies agreed to conclude the joint exercises on Friday, six days sooner than originally scheduled.

North Korea has dismissed the decision as immaterial in its view, however, and launched a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles on Thursday in a show of force.