- The Pentagon announced the withdrawal of 5,000 troops.
- Two senior Republican lawmakers express concern.
- Move spells end to long range missile battalion in Germany.
A planned withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from Germany has sparked a new debate about Europe’s defense responsibilities, with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius saying the move will pressure European allies to strengthen their own military capabilities.
The Pentagon on Friday confirmed the move from Germany, the largest US military center in Europe, amid rising tensions between Washington and European capitals over the Iran war and trade tariffs.
However, US President Donald Trump indicated that the reduction could only be the beginning. “We’re going to cut a lot, and we’re going to cut a lot more than 5,000,” he told reporters in Florida on Saturday when asked about the plan.
The announcement also raised concerns among two senior Republican lawmakers, who warned that troops should not be withdrawn from Europe, underscoring divisions in Washington over the future of the US military presence on the continent.
As part of the US decision, a Biden-era plan to deploy a US battalion of long-range Tomahawk missiles to Germany has also been dropped – a blow to Berlin, which had pushed for the move as a strong deterrent against Russia.
Republican lawmakers Sen. Roger Wicker and Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees, said they were “very concerned.” They said that the troops should not be moved from Europe, but moved east.
“Prematurely reducing the U.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 for details
Pistorius said the partial withdrawal was expected and would affect a current US presence of nearly 40,000 troops stationed in Germany.
“We Europeans must take more responsibility for our own security,” Pistorius said, adding, “Germany is on the right track” by expanding its armed forces, speeding up military procurement and building infrastructure.
Trump called for a reduced military presence in Germany as far back as his first term and has repeatedly called on Europe to take responsibility for its defense. However, he stepped up the threat earlier this week after sparring with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has questioned Washington’s exit strategy in the Middle East.
The Pentagon said the troop withdrawal was expected to be completed in the next six to 12 months. It did not say which bases would be affected, nor whether the troops would return to the United States or be redeployed in 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 of continued US support on Nato’s eastern flank amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, also expressed concern over the latest setback for the alliance.
“The biggest threat to the transatlantic community is not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance. We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend,” Tusk wrote on X Saturday.
The Pentagon’s plans were the latest blow to Germany from Washington this weekend after Trump said he would raise tariffs on EU car imports to 25%, accusing the EU of failing to uphold a trade deal – in a move that threatens to cost the German economy billions.
A foreign policy official from Chancellor Merz’s CDU party said the two announcements must be seen in light of pressure on Trump both at home and abroad, amid weak polling and pressure over unresolved conflicts in Ukraine, Venezuela and Iran.
“In this context, both the troop withdrawal and the trade policy seem less like an expression of a coherent strategy and more like a political reflex and a reaction born of frustration,” Peter Beyer told Reuters.
Long-range fire battalion cancelled
Nato members have pledged to take more responsibility for their own defence, but with tight budgets and large gaps in military capability, it will take years for the region to meet its own security needs.
Germany wants to increase the number of active Bundeswehr soldiers from the current 185,000 to 260,000, although critics of the defense minister have called for more in response to a widely perceived growing threat from Russia.
The US military presence in Germany, which began as an occupation force after World War II, peaked during the 1960s when hundreds of thousands of US military personnel were stationed there to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The presence includes the giant Ramstein Air Base and Landstuhl Hospital, both of which have been used by the US to support its war in Iran, as well as past conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon decision means a full brigade will leave Germany and a long-range fire battalion that was due to deploy later this year will be cancelled.
Long-range fires were to form a significant additional element of deterrence against Russia, while the Europeans themselves were developing such long-range missiles.
The US “holds a de facto monopoly inside Nato” on long-range fires, wrote Christian Moelling, director of the European defense think tank EDINA, on X. “Therefore this is operationally more serious than the number of troops.”
