U.S. withdraws from military exercises with South Korea set for next month

BREAKING: US withdraws from military exercises with South Korea set for next month, cancelling planned Marine drills.

The United States just pulled out of military exercises with South Korea. The Washington Post is reporting Washington has withdrawn from joint drills set for next month, including planned Marine exercises that are now cancelled outright.

Those drills, run out of the Pentagon for decades, aren't a photo op. They're the rehearsal for how two allied militaries actually fight together, and Seoul has built its entire defence posture around them happening on schedule.

So the question everyone in South Korea is asking tonight is simple. Is this a scheduling decision, or a signal? Pyongyang has demanded an end to these exercises for years, and cancelling Marine drills is exactly the kind of move North Korea reads as a concession. We don't yet know the White House's reasoning, and that silence is its own story.

For now the hardest fact stands alone. Next month, for the first time in a long time, American Marines won't be training alongside their Korean allies.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.