Donald Trump’s ‘Pivot from Asia’

By Noah Rothman

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

 

On Sunday, the president abruptly ordered his secretary of defense to “substantially reduce” the U.S. commitment to a forthcoming joint exercise with South Korea’s armed forces. But Trump did not provide the public with much of a rationale for his maneuver.

 

In a social media post, he said he was “not happy” with America’s legacy commitments to these exercises in which he has had no input. Additionally, he said he has a “very good relationship” with North Korean despot Kim Jong-un and, presumably, didn’t want to upset that applecart.

 

But there was another matter “somewhat unrelated (?)” — yes, the president threw a question mark in there — of the Republic of Korea’s refusal to “join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The following day, Trump let everyone know that South Korea’s failure to support the U.S. mission in and around Iran was, in fact, the heart of the issue.

 

The United States has “39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong Un, your next-door neighbor, and you’re not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran?” Trump complained. He recalled telling his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae Myung, “Well, why are we involved in helping you?”

 

He tore into South Korea for failing, as have many NATO allies, to more actively support clearing measures in the Strait of Hormuz. “They get 50 percent of their oil, and they don’t want to get involved,” he pondered. “Why are we doing it?” And he fumed over a Biden-era maneuver that withdrew a fee Seoul was expected to pay for the privilege of hosting U.S. forces on its soil. “We would have been getting paid a lot more, but we can’t go around and protect all of these countries, especially when they’re not there to help us,” Trump explained. “So, all I want is fairness.”

 

But Trump isn’t too sour over the whole thing, it seems. During that exchange with reporters, the president mused wryly that North Korea’s communist dictator is enjoying the schism he’s engineering with the South Koreans. He even posted a silly meme on his social media feed playing up his bonds of friendship with the DPRK’s despot. At least the president is having fun.

 

Yet this outburst, in combination with Trump’s threat to bomb Oman if it continues to toy with Iran’s ploy to toll maritime traffic in the strait, lent credence to the New York Times’ summation of the whole affair: “Trump lashes out.”

 

The president risks being accused of a double standard. After all, he’s attempting to drum up support for a campaign designed to prevent nuclear proliferation even as he cozies up to a notorious nuclear proliferator. At the very least, none of this is especially “low key.”

 

The political press was swift to question the logic behind the president’s attack on Seoul. South Korea’s “defense establishment was deeply rattled” by the presidential slight, the Times reported. And it comes as North Korea has become more hostile in recent years. Its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine — first through the provision of weapons, munitions, and materiel and, later, with the deployment of a full-scale expeditionary force — is, according to Lee, “a rehearsal for an aggressive war.”

 

Congressional Democrats gave reporters plenty of florid quotes to illustrate the scale of Trump’s folly. The president is punishing South Korea “for no reason beyond Trump’s ego,” said Senator Jack Reed. “Our ability to help defend our ally against the North Koreans is because our forces are well trained and able to coordinate with the South Koreans,” Senator Mark Kelly agreed. “Hollowing out these joint exercises is shortsighted and a mistake.”

 

Partisans though they are, these Democrats echo the concerns of the Western defense community. Combined with the president’s decision to leave the Western Pacific without a deployed U.S. aircraft carrier group (the USS George Washington has been tasked with relieving the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East), some fear a breakdown of deterrence in the far East. “Anyone that says this whole package of steps is a net positive for deterrence is deluded,” said one George W. Bush-era State Department official. “We’ve gone from a stillborn ‘pivot to Asia’ to a reverse pivot from Asia.”

 

That’s a real concern inside South Korea, where, it must be said, politics happens, too. It was a point of contention inside South Korea and with its neighbors, like China, when the government in Seoul accepted the deployment of THAAD anti-missile batteries on its soil. Likewise, it was a scandal when Seoul was essentially told that those batteries would be relocated to the Middle East. Still, the South Korean government has deferred to Washington, and it continues to express hope of resolving the impasse with Donald Trump on mutually agreeable terms.

 

But what could those be?

 

“At first glance, South Korea appears to have a robust navy that could conduct expeditionary operations,” regional defense expert Ju Hyung Kim wrote in April. But Seoul likely cannot deploy its naval assets — its destroyers, in particular — without weakening deterrence on the Korean Peninsula. “Seoul could continuously maintain a single destroyer deployment without seriously impacting the regional posture,” he added. “Additional ships can be sent in exigencies for a limited period of time — yet it is unsustainable without drawing down the forces necessary for homeland deterrence.”

 

Those material considerations must compete for space in the heads of South Korea’s policymakers with the South Korean public’s distaste for the kinds of commitments Trump is demanding of them. In early spring, one public opinion poll found that over 60 percent of South Koreans oppose deploying naval assets to the Strait of Hormuz.

 

Back in May, South Korean Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok proposed an innovative solution to the conundrum. “Rather than diverting limited naval assets from the Indo-Pacific, Seoul can provide scalable, defensive capabilities designed to protect commercial shipping from asymmetric threats alongside logistics, maintenance, and industrial support,” he wrote for War on the Rocks:

 

This contribution could prioritize defensive hardware, including capabilities such as advanced surface-to-air missiles and directed-energy systems. For instance, the Cheongung-II (M-SAM) system has demonstrated ongoing success and near-perfect interception rates in recent Middle Eastern deployments. Additionally, the Block-I laser system offers a high success rate for a revolutionary cost of approximately $1.50 per shot, providing a sustainable counter to the low-cost asymmetric drone threats that currently force partners to expend million-dollar interceptors. Just as South Korea has emerged as the arsenal of Europe by becoming NATO’s second-largest weapons supplier, it is well positioned to extend that role to maritime security in the Middle East. In doing so, South Korea can strengthen the operational capacity of partners already present in the region.

 

It seems the South Korean government had no stomach for this option. Even if it did, it’s unclear it would satisfy the president. But the Blue House is eager to appease Trump. Shortly after the president set his sights on the Republic of Korea, Seoul revealed that it was “closely discussing with the United States practical and military contribution options” for the Strait of Hormuz.

 

That phrase, “military contribution,” raised eyebrows among South Korea-watchers. But the language does not depart dramatically from the South Korean government’s statements back in May, after Iran attacked a Republic of Korea-flagged cargo vessel. Back then, Seoul said it would “review its position” on the strait. It didn’t.

 

Perhaps the president’s bullying will shake something loose in Seoul. And if it does, maybe the other U.S. allies to whom Trump has put the screws — Japan, France, and the U.K., in particular — will follow suit. “It will work out,” Trump said of the presently unnavigable impasse in the strait. “It always works out.” Maybe it will. But it would be wise to avoid the temptation to attribute strategic thought to the president’s impulses.

 

He does, indeed, seem to be lashing out.

 

ADDENDUM: According to Reuters, Donald Trump’s job approval rating is approaching its lowest point in nearly ten years.

 

“Just 33% of respondents in the four-day survey said they approved of Trump’s performance in the White House, while 64% disapproved,” its dispatch reads. He “has now tied the lowest level of his prior term reached in December 2017.”

 

It’s been a rough summer for the president, and Trump is fast running out of time to repair his image in advance of the midterm elections. Historically, the midterm electorate’s vote will reflect how they feel about the president, so the GOP’s political class is bracing for a rough landing in November. But the party might take some solace in the fact that some of the president’s acolytes fare better than he does in polling.

 

At least, that’s the vibe in Utah, as Deseret News reported. There, Trump’s job approval rating is sagging, but both of his most visible lieutenants — Marco Rubio and JD Vance — are above water. The results suggest that some voters can still draw distinctions between Trump and his fellow Republicans.

 

Given the direction in which the polls are headed, though, Republicans are going to have to hope that voters everywhere are as generous as Utah’s. That’s a big bet.