MILITARY/NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A training exercise involving U.S. B-52 bombers and South Korean planes was scrapped earlier this week after the South Korean government expressed concerns that it could generate tensions before the summit meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to U.S. officials. The move follows repeated assertions by the Trump administration that it is keeping up a campaign of maximum economic and military pressure until North Korea gives up its nuclear-weapons programs and that the U.S. has not changed the scope of its exercises. But the South Koreans asked not to participate in what was intended to be a three-nation air drill involving the U.S., South Korea and Japan, the U.S. officials said. The U.S., which has sought to maintain political solidarity with Seoul during a turbulent period of diplomacy with North Korea, has not commented publicly on the South Korean decision.”
– Michael R. Gordon and Nancy A. Youssef, “U.S. Scrapped Training Exercise With South Korea Involving B-52s,” The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2018 10:14 am