German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said this Saturday (2) that the withdrawal of 5,000 American troops from Germany was already expected, but should encourage Europeans to strengthen their own defenses.
The Pentagon announced on Friday (1st) that the United States would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany, its largest European base, following disagreements between the countries over the war in Iran and tensions with Europe over tariffs.
Trump wanted a reduced military presence in Germany in his first term and has repeatedly called for Europe to take responsibility for its defense.
The president escalated the threat earlier this week following a Friedrich Merz who said on Monday that the Iranians were humiliating the US in negotiations to end the two-month war.
The German Defense Minister said the partial withdrawal would affect the current US presence of nearly 40,000 troops stationed in Germany.
According to the U.S. Defense Human Resources Data Center, 36,436 active-duty military personnel were stationed in Germany as of December of last year.
“We Europeans must take more responsibility for our own security,” Pistorius said, adding: “Germany is on the right track,” accelerating military acquisitions and building infrastructure.
The Pentagon said the withdrawal is expected to be completed within the next six to 12 months. It did not say which bases would be affected, nor whether troops would return to the United States or be redeployed to Europe or elsewhere.
One said the alliance was working with the US to understand the details of the decision.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country is seeking assurances of continued US support amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, expressed concern.
“The greatest threat to the transatlantic community is not its external enemies, but the continued disintegration of our alliance. We must all do whatever is necessary to reverse this disastrous trend,” Tusk wrote in X this Saturday.
The Pentagon’s plans were Washington’s latest jab at Germany this weekend, after Trump said he would raise tariffs on EU car imports to 25%, accusing the bloc of failing to defend a trade deal. The move could cost the German economy billions.
A foreign policy official from Chancellor Merz’s CDU party said that it is necessary to consider the pressure on Trump, both internally and externally, amid negative opinion polls and pressure on unresolved conflicts in Ukraine, Venezuela and Iran.
“In this context, both the troop withdrawal and trade policy seem less the expression of a coherent strategy and more a political reflex and a reaction born of frustration,” Peter Beyer told Reuters.
NATO members have committed to taking more responsibility for their own defense, but with tight budgets and huge 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 soldiers in the Bundeswehr from 185,000 to 260,000.
The U.S. military presence in Germany, which began as an occupation force after World War II, reached its peak during the 1960s, when hundreds of thousands of American military personnel were stationed there to fight the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The US presence includes the massive Ramstein air base and the Landstuhl hospital, both used by the US to support its war in Iran, as well as previous conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon’s decision means a full brigade will leave Germany and a long-range fire battalion that was supposed to deploy later this year will be cancelled.
The loss of long-range fires will be a particular blow to Berlin, as they were a significant additional element of deterrence against Russia while the Europeans themselves were developing these long-range missiles.
