The United States is withdrawing 5,000 troops from Nato ally Germany, the Pentagon announced yesterday, as a rift over the Iran war widens between President Donald Trump and Europe.
Trump had threatened a drawdown in forces earlier this week after sparring with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said on Monday the Iranians were humiliating the US in talks to end the two-month-old war.
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.
The Pentagon said the withdrawal was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months.
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.
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.
&uuid=(email))