President Trump ordered the Pentagon on Sunday to substantially scale back joint military exercises with South Korea — and the question every working American should ask is why we're still funding permanent overseas garrisons 73 years after the Korean War.

The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield drills were set to begin this week and run 11 days, involving 18,000 South Korean soldiers. Trump called the exercises costly and said they "send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile" to North Korea, which he claimed "has been unthreatening and respectful" during his presidency. He also revealed that when he asked South Korea's president to join U.S. efforts to denuclearize Iran, "they said, 'No thanks!'"

Al-Monitor framed that Iran reference as part of "the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran" — a telling detail AP News buried entirely, describing it only as U.S. denuclearization efforts. The framing matters: South Korea won't lift a finger for America's Middle East priorities, but Americans are expected to underwrite Seoul's defense indefinitely.

Trump instructed "Secretary of War" Pete Hegseth to "substantially reduce" the exercises, saying it was too late to cancel entirely but he was "not happy" the U.S. had agreed to participate. North Korea had already threatened "stern steps" on Friday, calling the drills "a rehearsal for an aggressive war" — rhetoric AP notes is typical before major exercises, which Pyongyang uses as pretext to expand its own weapons programs.

This isn't Trump's first move against the war games. After his 2018 Singapore summit with Kim Jong Un, he unilaterally announced an end to the exercises, calling them "provocative" and saying the move would "save us a tremendous amount of money." The permanent-war crowd howled then, and they'll howl now.

And no wonder. Roughly 28,000 U.S. troops sit on the Korean peninsula. The U.S. military calls the alliance "the linchpin for regional peace and security" and touts its "ironclad commitment." But linchpins cost money — American money — and the defense contractors who supply those garrisons bill accordingly. Every exercise, every rotation, every prepositioned piece of equipment is a line item someone profits from. The drills included live-fire exercises, wet gap crossings, and distribution of prepositioned military equipment. Someone builds it. Someone ships it. Someone gets the contract to replace it.

Trump has expressed interest in resuming discussions with North Korea and posted a photo of himself alongside Kim, writing that the two leaders "get along great." Whether that diplomacy goes anywhere is an open question. What isn't: after seven decades, the case for making Americans pay to be the world's security guard has never been weaker — and the case for allies carrying their own weight has never been stronger.