President Donald Trump gestures during a working session with G7 leaders and outreach partners on international investment partnerships at the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 16, 2026.
President Donald Trump's latest demand of the Pentagon is primed to backfire, as one expert told The i Paper, as it could hand a major victory to one of his biggest perceived enemies: China.
On Sunday, Trump took to Truth Social calling on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to "substantially reduce" joint military exercises with South Korea, shortly before new ones were set to take place. He suggested that participating in these exercises would be "totally inappropriate and hostile" to North Korea, the dictatorship that he claimed has been "unthreatening and respectful." The U.S. has no actual diplomatic ties to North Korea, despite Trump's past attempts to establish a warmer relationship with leader Kim Jong-un. He also suggested in the post that the decision was made in retaliation for South Korea declining to get involved in the war with Iran.
"Based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” Trump's post stated.
In a piece published Monday morning, The i Paper's Max Melzer said that this was the "latest in a series of moves minimizing America’s presence in the Asia-Pacific region," and risked handing China even more power in the region as it "ramps up its assertiveness."
"This is not the first time the President has scaled back military drills with South Korea," he explained. Trump completely suspended planned exercises in 2018 as he sought direct negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the country’s nuclear program. However, the announcement was unusual given it was apparently a unilateral decision made just days before the drills were set to begin."
Melzer also spoke with Jane Hardy, a former Australian envoy to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and now a non-resident senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, about the situation. Hardy stressed that, out of the players in this situation, China is the one most likely to emerge as the winner.
“China is the beneficiary of almost everything that Trump does," Hardy explained. “China, now, holds so many cards. It is a country that dominates the world economy, it is developing highly sophisticated industry, it has overtaken Japan and Germany, I believe, in its assessed production of strategic goods, and it is the only country in the world that can rival the US on the new front – the new front, of course, being artificial intelligence.”