{"id":2096,"date":"2026-08-17T04:14:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T04:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=2096"},"modified":"2026-08-17T04:14:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T04:14:28","slug":"trump-will-make-south-korea-pay-for-his-iran-humiliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=2096","title":{"rendered":"Trump Will Make South Korea Pay For His Iran Humiliation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last winter, Donald Trump plunged recklessly into war with Iran. The United States is now losing that conflict. Iran remains defiant, much of the world economy is more threatened now than it was six months ago, U.S. military resources are overextended, and munition stores are dangerously depleted. Trump and the United States have suffered one embarrassment after another; last week, he had to sneak away from the region on a backup plane because of a possible assassination threat from Tehran.<\/p>\n

Read more Wilderness Years<\/a><\/p>\n

And so the president of the United States has taken the logical next step: He is punishing South Korea, a loyal American friend, and tempting U.S. enemies to doubt America\u2019s will to defend its allies.<\/p>\n

Early Sunday evening, Trump instructed the Defense Department to \u201csubstantially reduce\u201d its participation in an annual joint military exercise with the South Koreans. He did this, he said in a post on Truth Social, in part because such activities are expensive, but worse, they are insulting to his friends in North Korea, a country that has been \u201cunthreatening and respectful\u201d while he\u2019s been in office. (Trump seems unconcerned about the dozens of nuclear weapons Pyongyang is pointing at U.S. and South Korean forces\u2014many of them developed on his watch. Just a reminder: There are roughly 28,500 American troops currently stationed in South Korea, some just a few miles from the DMZ.)<\/p>\n

More to the point, he complained that the South Koreans have not helped him defeat Iran:<\/p>\n

\n
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While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, \u201cNo thanks!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

When Trump makes the effort to say something is \u201cunrelated\u201d to his actions (and then adds a coy question mark) it usually means it is completely <\/em>related\u2014and probably his central motivation.<\/p>\n

Scaling back the exercise is, of course, an insane decision, which does nothing but hurt an ally, and tempt an adversary to think\u2014correctly\u2014that American leadership is feckless. You could be forgiven for wondering why South Korea and the rest of the free world must pay for Donald Trump\u2019s failures. Such confusion is understandable, except that in Trump\u2019s world, every loss, every defeat, is a personal insult. When things go wrong, someone must be held responsible\u2014and that someone<\/em> is never Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Read more How Trump Left America Vulnerable to Cyberattacks<\/a><\/p>\n

America and the rest of the world are now witnessing a public exhibition of narcissistic rage. Trump embarked on a war for personal glory, and what he got instead was ongoing humiliation. He clearly finds it all unbearable.<\/p>\n

Trump both fears and respects the autocrats who rule Russia, China, and North Korea, and so he dares not cross them. Instead, he is seeking to assuage the psychic injury of his loss in Iran\u2014including the American public learning of the shameful conditions to which he has subjected U.S. forces\u2014by kicking America\u2019s allies, the nations he can punish without fear that they will kick him back.<\/p>\n

The Iran war was not the president\u2019s failure, you see. Others failed the president. Those disloyal South Koreans, who every few years drag him into a needless confrontation with that respectful and peace-loving young man in Pyongyang, refused to help him topple the Iranian regime. And because Trump is unable to subdue Iran, unable to replenish stocks of U.S. weapons he should never have expended in this war, unable to take care of the service personnel he has put in harm\u2019s way, someone is going to pay. The most convenient target he could find, at least for the moment, was South Korea.<\/p>\n

At a better moment in American history, an enraged Congress would step in and demand answers about such dangerous idiocy. They would rush to the White House, talk to the press, hold hearings, and in general act like responsible stewards of American power. Those days, at least among legislators of the president\u2019s party, are long past. They will take whatever Trump dishes out. Our allies might for the time being similarly ignore Trump\u2019s tantrums, but they have power and agency of their own, and even now are likely planning for a world in which the Americans are no longer men and women of principle who stand by their word and by their friends.<\/p>\n

The Chinese and the Russians and the North Koreas are certain to draw the appropriate lessons from this deranged policy. They have been shown, yet again, that when Trump fails, he hurts those he feels safe hurting. Already, North Korea is dispatching missiles and thousands of soldiers to aid Russia in its war on Ukraine. If a conflict should break out in the Pacific or on the Korean peninsula, or if the war in Europe spreads further West, the world\u2019s dictators might well count on Trump to focus American wrath not on the enemies of the free world, but on the nations that have always pledged to stand side by side with the United States in a mutual defense of freedom.<\/p>\n

Read more A Win for Dark Money<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His rage is driving him to make irrational policy choices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ideas"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump Will Make South Korea Pay For His Iran Humiliation - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=2096\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump Will Make South Korea Pay For His Iran Humiliation - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"His rage is driving him to make irrational policy choices.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=2096\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-17T04:14:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=2096#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=2096\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"Trump Will Make South Korea Pay For His Iran Humiliation\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-17T04:14:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=2096\"},\"wordCount\":877,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=2096#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/35e55770227d27f9a2846f4536f509bf.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Ideas\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=2096#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=2096\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=2096\",\"name\":\"Trump Will Make South Korea Pay For His Iran Humiliation - 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