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The White House said Tuesday that the U.S. military would continue to train with its South Korean counterparts and conduct military drills — but not large-scale, joint exercises — in a clarification of an offer by President Donald Trump to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.
The clarification, coming while Trump was still flying back from his summit with Kim in Singapore, was issued by a White House official after Vice President Mike Pence spent much of the day meeting with lawmakers who sought to understand what the president had promised.
Trump said at a Tuesday news conference in Singapore that for the duration of talks, he was stopping U.S. “war games,” which he said were “tremendously expensive” and provocative to North Korea. The offer wasn’t part of the joint statement between Trump and Kim, and was criticized by some lawmakers for giving away too much. North Korean media early Wednesday played up Trump’s cancellation of the maneuvers.
Pence met in closed session with GOP lawmakers, and some later said he told them that “regular readiness training and training exchanges” would continue, according to a Twitter message by Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. Late Tuesday, a White House official clarified Pence’s comments, saying, “The VP was asked about force readiness and said that while the semiannual war games would cease — assuming parameters of the deal are met — regular readiness training would continue.”
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