U.S. Republican lawmaker calls for restoration of scaled-back South Korea–U.S. joint military exercises

[Financial News] Rich McCormick, a Republican Party (GOP) member of the U.S. House of Representatives, called on the 22nd local time for the restoration of President Donald Trump's decision to scale back South Korea–U.S. joint military exercises, saying he hoped it would be a "temporary measure."
Appearing on Bloomberg's current affairs program "Bloomberg The Weekend" that day, McCormick argued that relations between South Korea and the United States should not be allowed to become less close than those with North Korea, China, Russia and other countries that are, in his words, "basically trying to do communism."
McCormick said of Korea that "its view of the world is similar to ours" and that it "seeks one enemy, one fight." He stressed that "integration with foreign allies is very good for our power projection," adding that "[Trump] has far more information than I do" and that he did not know exactly what factors were behind the decision to reduce the military drills.
Earlier, on the 16th, Trump wrote on social networking service that "given the very good relationship that Chairman Kim Jong Un and I have, I don't like the fact that the United States has long agreed to participate in joint military exercises with Korea," and instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sharply reduce the scale of the South Korea–U.S. joint drills. As a result, South Korean and U.S. military authorities shortened the originally planned 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise period, from Aug. 17 to 27, to five days and also reduced its scale.

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