Germany says US troop drawdown should spur Europe, but top Republicans worried
Written by: Sabine Siebold and Andreas Rinke
BERLIN, May 2 (Reuters) – German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Saturday that the withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany would encourage Europe to strengthen its own defenses, but two senior Republican lawmakers expressed concern, saying troops should not leave Europe.
The Pentagon announced the withdrawal from Germany, Europe’s biggest base, on Friday as a dispute over the Iran war and tariff tensions put further pressure on relations between the United States and Europe.
As part of the US decision, a Biden-era plan to deploy a US battalion with long-range Tomahawk missiles to Germany was also cancelled; This was a blow to Berlin, which wanted this move as a strong deterrent against Russia.
Republican lawmakers Sen. Roger Wicker and Rep. Mike Rogers, chairmen of the Senate and House armed services committees, said they were “very concerned.” They said that troops should be moved to the east, not from Europe.
“Reducing America’s forward presence in Europe before these capabilities are fully realized risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin,” they said in a joint statement.
NATO IS WORKING WITH WASHINGTON ON DETAILS
Pistorius said a partial withdrawal was expected and would affect the current U.S. presence of about 40,000 troops stationed in Germany.
“We Europeans must take more responsibility for our own security,” Pistorius said, adding that “Germany is on the right track” by expanding its armed forces, accelerating military supplies and building infrastructure.
Since his first term, US President Donald Trump has called for a reduction in the military presence in Germany and has repeatedly called on Europe to assume responsibility for defending it. But he stepped up his threat earlier this week after clashing with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who questioned Washington’s exit strategy from the Middle East.
The Pentagon said the troop withdrawal is expected to be completed within the next six to 12 months. It did not say which bases would be affected or whether the troops would return to the United States or be redeployed to Europe or elsewhere.
A NATO spokesman said the alliance was working with the United States to understand the details of the decision.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country is seeking assurances that US support will continue on NATO’s eastern flank amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, also expressed concern about the latest negativity experienced by the alliance.
“The greatest threat to the transatlantic community is not external enemies but the continued disintegration of our alliance. We must all do whatever it takes to reverse this disastrous trend,” Tusk wrote on
The Pentagon’s plans are the latest blow to Germany from Washington this weekend after Trump said he would raise tariffs on car imports from the EU to 25%, accusing the EU of not supporting a trade deal.
A foreign policy official from Chancellor Merz’s CDU party said the two announcements should be viewed in light of both domestic and international pressures on Trump, due to weak opinion polls and pressures related to unresolved conflicts in Ukraine, Venezuela and Iran.
“In this context, both the troop withdrawal and trade policy appear to be a political reflex and a reaction out of frustration rather than the expression of a coherent strategy,” Peter Beyer told Reuters. he said.
LONG RANGE FIRE BATTALION CANCELED
NATO members have pledged to take on greater responsibility for their own defense, but due to tight budgets and large gaps in military capabilities, it will take years for the region to meet its own security needs.
Germany wants to increase the number of Bundeswehr soldiers on active duty to 260,000 from the current 185,000, but critics of the defense minister have called for more recruits in response to the widely perceived growing threat from Russia.
The US military presence in Germany, which began as an occupation force after World War II, reached its peak in the 1960s, when hundreds of thousands of American military personnel were stationed there to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Assets include the giant Ramstein air base and Landstuhl hospital, both of which the US used to support its war in Iran as well as previous conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon’s decision means an entire brigade will leave Germany and a long-range fire battalion due to be deployed this year will be cancelled.
While the Europeans were developing such long-range missiles themselves, long-range fires would constitute an important extra deterrent element against Russia.
Christian Moelling, director of the European defense think tank EDINA, wrote in an article for X that the United States “has a virtual monopoly within NATO” on long-range fires. “So operationally this is more serious than the troop numbers.”
(Additional reporting by Rachel More, Andrew Gray, Marek Strzelecki and David Brunnstrom; Editing by James Mackenzie, Ross Colvin, William Maclean and Sharon Singleton)
