US scales back war game exercises with S. Korea ahead of summit

The U.S. and South Korea have reduced the scale of war games on the Korean Peninsula ahead of an expected meeting between President Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, The Associated Press reports.

Annual maneuvers that began on April 1 have featured a scaled-down number of U.S. assets, much lower than the 200,000 U.S. service members engaged at the height of U.S. war games in the 1980s, the AP reports.

{mosads}

This year’s exercises have been postponed and scaled back but have not been fully canceled, the AP reports, and are expected to go through the end of the month. The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and its battle group, which were present for last year’s maneuvers and drew a response from North Korea, were absent.

The USS Wasp, an amphibious assault craft capable of carrying F-35B stealth fighter jets, is involved in war games this month in the Korean Peninsula, however, and such a craft would likely be used in the event of a “decapitation” strike aimed at Kim and his top lieutenants.

The move from U.S. forces comes amid an apparent halt in North Korean missile tests, with the North shuttering a major testing facility ahead of Kim’s planned meeting with Trump to discuss the possible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Trump has mocked media coverage of his upcoming meeting with North Korean officials, an unprecedented meeting between a U.S. president and a North Korean leader, and erroneously claimed that the country has already agreed to denuclearize.

“Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing,” Trump tweeted on Sunday. “Wow, we haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing!”

“We are a long way from conclusion on North Korea, maybe things will work out, and maybe they won’t – only time will tell,” he added in a second tweet. “But the work I am doing now should have been done a long time ago!”