Trump: No discussion of troop drawdown during North Korea summit

President Trump said drawing down U.S. troops in South Korea was not a part of talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, despite the president’s willingness to reduce the nation’s military presence on the Korean Peninsula.

Trump told Fox News in an interview airing Wednesday that a troop draw down was “never discussed” during his historic summit with the North Korean leader in Singapore.

“I am sure he would like that. It was never on the table. We sort of understood that was never on the table,” the president said.

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Trump, however, reiterated his longstanding desire to lower the U.S. military footprint in South Korean, which has been a mainstay of the nation’s defense posture for decades.

“I would love to get the military out as soon as we can because it costs a lot of money and a lot of money for us,” Trump said.

The comments are unlikely to calm the nerves of skeptics who believe that Trump is willing to give away too much to Kim in pursuit of an elusive nuclear agreement.

Trump surprised allies in South Korea and also some U.S. national security officials this week by promising to scrap military exercises on the Korean Peninsula.

The announcement was made after the conclusion of this week’s summit in Singapore, which failed to produce an ironclad denuclearization agreement with North Korea.

The two leaders instead signed a document stating Pyongyang’s commitment to work toward the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a promise the country’s leadership has made — and violated — on several occasions over the past two decades.