US President Donald Trump said he would scale back participation in joint military exercises with South Korea, in part because of its lack of support for his war on Iran. The remarks further damaged ties between the longtime allies, and highlighted Washington’s prioritization of the Middle East conflict over relationships in Asia, as well as its demands for ideological fealty from geopolitical partners.
The US recently asked transatlantic allies whether they had “been publicly supportive” of American foreign policy, Bloomberg reported. “It’s normal for US alliances to be strained in times of foreign policy divergence,” The Economist’s Washington bureau chief wrote. “Not normal, at all, for the US to link security guarantees … to allies joining US wars of choice.”