Donald Trump‘s decision to withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany was ‘forseeable’ as a rift over the Iran war widens between the US President and Europe.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said in response that Europeans must now take more responsibility for their own security following the Pentagon‘s announcement on Friday.
Trump had threatened a drawdown in forces from his NATO ally earlier this week after sparring with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the Iranians were humiliating the US in talks to end the two-month-old war and that he did not see what exit strategy Washington was pursuing.
The President ripped into Merz earlier on Friday, saying ‘he’s doing a terrible job and he’s got a big problem with Ukraine, because they’re in that mess.’
A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said recent German rhetoric had been ‘inappropriate and unhelpful.’
‘The president is rightly reacting to these counterproductive remarks,’ the official said.
Pistorius responding by saying ‘Germany is on the right track’, pointing to the expansion of its Bundeswehr armed forces, greater and faster procurement of equipment and the construction of infrastructure.
In response to heavy criticism from Washington over defence spending, European NATO members, including Germany, have pledged to take on more responsibility for their own defence.
Donald Trump is pulling 5,000 troops from NATO ally Germany, the Pentagon announced on Friday, as a rift over the Iran war widens between the President and Europe
But with tight budgets and vast military capability gaps it will take years for the region to meet its own security needs.
‘The presence of American soldiers in Europe, and especially in Germany, is in our interest and in the interest of the United States,’ Pistorius said.
Still, it was ‘foreseeable that the US would withdraw troops from Europe, including Germany’, he added.
The Pentagon said the withdrawal was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months.
Germany is home to some 35,000 active-duty US military personnel, more than anywhere else in Europe.
The official said the drawdown would bring US troop levels in Europe back to roughly pre-2022 levels, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a buildup by then-President Joe Biden.
They also cast the decision in terms of the Trump administration’s push for Europe to become the main security provider on the continent.
But it is nonetheless another potent reminder of Trump’s willingness to respond to perceived disloyalty by allies.
Trump had threatened a drawdown in forces earlier this week after sparring with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (pictured)
Reuters exclusively reported last week an internal Pentagon email that outlined options to punish NATO allies that Washington believes failed to support US operations in the war with Iran, including suspending Spain from NATO and reviewing the US position on Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands.
Trump has singled out Germany even as he has chastised other NATO allies for not sending their navies to help open the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict.
The waterway, a chokepoint for global oil shipments, has remained virtually shut, causing market turmoil and unprecedented disruption in energy supplies.
Merz has said Germans and Europeans were not consulted before the US and Israel started attacking Iran on February 28, and that he had conveyed his skepticism about the conflict directly to Trump afterwards.
‘The president has been very clear about his frustrations about our allies’ rhetoric and failure to provide support for US operations that benefit them,’ the senior Pentagon official said.
The President has long wanted to reduce the US troop presence in Germany. He pushed for a reduction at the end of his first term, but that cut was never enacted.
Trump lost the election and Biden reversed the plan.
The President’s Wednesday announcement that he was reviewing US troop levels in Germany surprised German military officials who spoke to Reuters, citing what they called constructive meetings at the Pentagon earlier in the day.
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Members of the U.S. Army 7th Army Training Command in Germany
The President has long wanted to reduce the US troop presence in Germany. He pushed for a reduction at the end of his first term, but that cut was never enacted
They argue that Germany has done more than other allies to support the US war in Iran, including allowing the use of bases and giving permission for overflights.
Germany is also home to a huge military hospital in Landstuhl.
As part of Trump’s withdrawal decision, a brigade combat team now in Germany will be pulled out of the country and a long-range fires battalion that the Biden administration had planned to begin deploying to Germany later this year will no longer deploy, the official said.
Trump earlier this week said on social media that the chancellor ‘wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon.’
He continued his attack on Thursday in a Truth Social post, claiming Merz should ‘spend more time ending the war with Russia/Ukraine’ and ‘fixing his broken Country.’
The US President added that the Chancellor should spend ‘less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat.’
At a speech on Monday, Merz had said: ‘An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.’
The Chancellor proceeded to criticise Washington for having no clear exit strategy in the Iran war, reiterating that Germany had not been consulted before US-Israeli attacks and that he had conveyed his skepticism directly to Trump afterwards.
‘If I had known that it would continue like this for five or six weeks and get progressively worse, I would have told him even more emphatically,’ Merz said.
