Trump “War Games” Announcement Shocks South Korea, US Military Forces

• Trump “War Games” Announcement Shocks South Korea, US Military Forces
  by Tyler Durden, https://www.zerohedge.com/
  In what was perhaps the most surprising announcement to emerge from today’s Trump-Kim summit, president Trump agreed to suspend military exercises with South Korea in return for a commitment to denuclearisation from North Korea.
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  As we reported earlier, Trump said the war games were expensive and “very provocative”, and yet stopping them has been called a “major concession”, something the US has previously rejected as non-negotiable on the grounds that the exercises are a key element of its military alliance with Seoul, and maintaining a deterrent against North Korea. In return, Trump said Kim had agreed in a joint statement to reassert “his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”.
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  In other words, Trump made it appear that he is negotiating from a position of weakness to achieve a diplomatic goal which would have remained unachievable had Trump not taken the initiative. In doing so, however, he infuriated the neocons in his immediate circle. Immediately after the announcement, the WaPo’s Josh Rogin noted that “Everything Trump is saying and doing goes directly against everything Bolton has ever said or believed about North Korea.”
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