{"id":85432,"date":"2018-04-29T14:53:30","date_gmt":"2018-04-29T14:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/04\/29\/us-reaffirms-its-ironclad-commitment-to-defend-south-korea\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T08:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T08:25:10","slug":"us-reaffirms-its-ironclad-commitment-to-defend-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/29\/us-reaffirms-its-ironclad-commitment-to-defend-south-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"US reaffirms its \u2018ironclad commitment\u2019 to defend South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2018\/04\/27\/mattis-north-korea-will-need-to-build-trust-as-peace-agreement-advances\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Defense Secretary Jim Mattis<\/a> spoke on Saturday with their South Korean counterparts after the historic meeting between leaders of the two Koreas, and Trump said \u201cthings are going very well\u201d as he prepares for an expected summit with the North\u2019s Kim Jong Un.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mattis and Defense Minister Song Young-moo said they were committed to \u201ca diplomatic resolution that achieves complete, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/29\/seoul-north-koreas-kim-vows-to-shut-nuke-test-site-in-may\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">verifiable and irreversible denuclearization\u201d of the North<\/a>, according to the Pentagon\u2019s chief spokeswoman, Dana W. White. Mattis also reaffirmed \u201cthe ironclad U.S. commitment\u201d to defend its ally \u201cusing the full spectrum of U.S. capabilities. \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump tweeted Saturday that he had \u201ca long and very good talk\u201d with President Moon Jae-in. He also said he updated Japan\u2019s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, about \u201cthe ongoing negotiations\u201d for an anticipated summit with Kim, tentatively scheduled for May or early June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moon and Kim have pledged to seek <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/27\/kim-jong-un-makes-history-crosses-border-to-meet-his-rival\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">a formal end to the Korean War<\/a>, fought from 1950 to 1953, by year\u2019s end and to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons. Trump has said he\u2019s looking forward to the meeting with Kim and that it \u201cshould be quite something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThings are going very well, time and location of meeting with North Korea is being set,\u201d Trump tweeted. A statement from the White House describing the call between Trump and Moon also referred to the North\u2019s future being contingent upon \u201ccomplete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/22\/road-to-north-koreas-denuclearization-is-littered-with-failure\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"176\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP18111355411423.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Road to North Korea\u2019s denuclearization is littered with failure<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">While Seoul and Washington welcomed Pyongyang\u2019s declaration on Saturday to suspend further intercontinental ballistic missile tests and shut down its nuclear test site, the past is littered with failure.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/22\/trump-says-north-korea-agreed-to-denuclearize-it-hasnt\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Trump is claiming credit<\/a> for the Korean summit, but now faces a burden in helping turn the Korean leaders\u2019 bold but vague vision for peace into reality after more than six decades of hostility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump must contend with suspicions about his own suitability to conduct that kind of war-and-peace negotiation and succeed where his predecessors have failed, and whether Kim really is willing to give up the nuclear weapons his nation took decades acquiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt is still unclear whether North Korea still believes that it can have its cake and eat it too,\u201d said Victor Cha, who until January had been in the running to become Trump\u2019s choice for ambassador to South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"665\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP18114083450125.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-89974\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP18114083450125.jpg.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP18114083450125.jpg.jpg?resize=300,195 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP18114083450125.jpg.jpg?resize=768,499 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">In this March 27, 2018, photo, a man watches a TV screen showing file footage of U.S. President Donald Trump, right, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, center, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea. (Lee Jin-man\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At a White House news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, Trump basked in the afterglow of the meeting between Kim and Moon, and said he has a responsibility to try to achieve peace and denuclearization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAnd if I can\u2019t do it, it\u2019ll be a very tough time for a lot of countries, and a lot of people. It\u2019s certainly something that I hope I can do for the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moon and Kim have not specified what steps would be taken to formally end the war or eliminate nuclear weapons. Now the pressure to deliver results, at least on the allies\u2019 side, has shifted to Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/18\/us-forces-in-korea-arent-packing-up-just-yet-heres-why\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-927755548.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">US forces in Korea aren\u2019t packing up just yet. Here\u2019s why.<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">Any peace deal with North Korea is unlikely to have an immediate impact on the 23,000 U.S. troops deployed on the peninsula.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The president pushed back against critics who say he\u2019s being manipulated by Kim, who has abruptly shifted to diplomacy after last year\u2019s full-scale push to become a nuclear power that could threaten the U.S. mainland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s ever had this enthusiasm for somebody, for them wanting to make a deal,\u201d Trump said in the Oval Office. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be played, OK. We\u2019re going to hopefully make a deal. The United States in the past has been played like a fiddle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/24\/in-big-shift-trump-assesses-kim-jong-un-as-very-honorable\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP18114551428869.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">In big shift, Trump assesses Kim Jong Un as \u2018very honorable\u2019<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Kim Jong Un wants a historic, high-stakes meeting as soon as possible and suggested the North Korean dictator has been \u201cvery open\u201d and \u201cvery honorable,\u201d a sharply different assessment of a leader he once denounced as \u201cLittle Rocket Man.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New Secretary of State <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/18\/us-officials-say-pompeo-has-met-with-north-koreas-kim\/\" title=\"\" class=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Pompeo<\/a>, who as CIA director met Kim four weeks ago in North Korea, told reporters in Brussels that he got the impression that Kim was \u201cserious\u201d about negotiating on denuclearization because of the Trump-led economic pressure campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Pompeo added a word of caution: \u201cI am always careful. There is a lot of history here. Promises have been made, hopes have been raised and then dashed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">North Korea has already called a halt to nuclear and long-range missile tests, which has helped dial down tensions significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">North Korea was hit with unprecedented economic restrictions during 2017, when the U.S. and North Korean leaders traded threats while Kim pushed his nation to the verge of being able to fire a nuclear-tipped missile at the U.S. mainland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The diplomatic climate has changed dramatically this year, as Kim has ended his international seclusion, reaching out to South Korea, the U.S., and China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mattis has said the U.S. is \u201coptimistic right now that there\u2019s opportunity here that we have never enjoyed since 1950\u2033 and any progress will be up to the diplomats. He was referring to the year the Korean War broke out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The fighting, which also involved China, cost hundreds of thousands of lives and ended with the declaration of an armistice, not a peace treaty. That has left the peninsula in a technical state of war for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis spoke on Saturday with their South Korean counterparts after the historic meeting between leaders of the two Koreas, and Trump said \u201cthings are going very well\u201d as he prepares for an expected summit with the North\u2019s Kim Jong Un.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":89973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":10,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"4":{"categories":["flashpoints","pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"flashpoints"},"5":{"categories":["flashpoints","pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"flashpoints"},"6":{"categories":["flashpoints","pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"flashpoints"},"7":{"categories":["flashpoints","pentagon-congress","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"flashpoints"}}},"categories":[10,15,86],"tags":[],"coauthors":[307],"class_list":["post-85432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"5RMNUK2SKVGC5GJR2TO4GVJRS4","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/29\/us-reaffirms-its-ironclad-commitment-to-defend-south-korea\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>US reaffirms its \u2018ironclad commitment\u2019 to defend South Korea - Military Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis spoke on Saturday with their South Korean counterparts after the historic meeting between leaders of the two Koreas, and Trump said \u201cthings are going very well\u201d as he prepares for an expected summit with the North\u2019s Kim Jong Un.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/29\/us-reaffirms-its-ironclad-commitment-to-defend-south-korea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US reaffirms its \u2018ironclad commitment\u2019 to defend South Korea\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis spoke on Saturday with their South Korean counterparts after the historic meeting between leaders of the two Koreas, and Trump said \u201cthings are going very well\u201d as he prepares for an expected summit with the North\u2019s Kim Jong Un.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/flashpoints\/2018\/04\/29\/us-reaffirms-its-ironclad-commitment-to-defend-south-korea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Military Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-04-29T14:53:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-08T08:25:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matthew Pennington, The Associated Press\" \/>\n<meta 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