Germany\u2019s defence minister has said the US decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from his country was \u201cforeseeable\u201d, as the Nato military alliance says it is seeking clarification from Washington.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the DPA news agency, Boris Pistorius also stressed \u201cthe presence of American soldiers in Europe, and particularly in Germany, is in our interest and in the interest of the US\u201d.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Nato spokeswoman Allison Hart said the alliance was \u201cworking with the US to understand the details of their decision\u201d.<\/p>\n
When asked on Saturday night about the withdrawal of troops, Trump said: \u201cWe\u2019re going to cut way down, and we\u2019re cutting a lot further than 5,000.\u201d He did not provide more details.<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s move comes after President Donald Trump criticised German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for saying the US had been \u201chumiliated\u201d by Iranian negotiators in the ongoing war.<\/p>\n
The US military deployment in Germany \u2013 currently at more than 36,000 active duty troops \u2013 is by far its biggest in Europe, compared with about 12,000 in Italy and 10,000 in the UK.<\/p>\n
When asked on Saturday night about the withdrawal of troops, Trump said: \u201cWe\u2019re going to cut way down, and we\u2019re cutting a lot further than 5,000.\u201d He did not provide more details.<\/p>\n
Trump has also suggested pulling US troops from Italy and Spain.<\/p>\n
Last year, Washington decided to reduce its troop presence in Romania, as part of Trump\u2019s plan to shift the focus of US military commitment from Europe to the Indo-Pacific region.<\/p>\n
There are now growing concerns within the 32-member Nato alliance that the US latest decision could weaken the organisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greatest threat to the transatlantic community are not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance,\u201d Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
And two senior US lawmakers from Trump\u2019s Republican party said that they were \u201cvery concerned by the decision to withdraw a US brigade from Germany\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than withdrawing forces from the continent altogether, it is in the US interest to maintain a strong deterrent in Europe,\u201d said Senator Roger Wicker and Representative Mike Rogers, who chair the Senate and House armed services committees respectively.<\/p>\n
In Saturday\u2019s interview with DPA, Pistorius also said Europe must take greater responsibility for its security, and that Berlin would now be working more closely with allies on the continent.<\/p>\n
\u201cGermany is on the right track,\u201d he said, pointing out that his country has significantly boosted its military spending in recent years.<\/p>\n
Trump had previously accused Germany of being \u201cdelinquent\u201d because its military spending was well below Nato\u2019s target of 2% of economic output (GDP).<\/p>\n
But that began to change under the previous government of Olaf Scholz and has continued under Merz\u2019s current government, with Germany now projected to spend \u20ac105.8bn (\u00a391bn) on defence in 2027.<\/p>\n
Overall, Germany\u2019s defence expenditure is set to reach 3.1% of GDP, taking into account other defence funds, including Berlin\u2019s continuing aid to Ukraine as its continues to fight against invading Russian troops.<\/p>\n
In her post on X on Saturday, Nato\u2019s Allison Hart said the US decision to pull troops out of Germany \u201cunderscores the need for Europe to continue to invest more in defence and take on a greater share of the responsibility for our shared security.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re already seeing progress since allies agreed to invest 5% of GDP at the Nato summit in The Hague last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latest spat between Trump and Merz was triggered by comments by the German chancellor on Monday.<\/p>\n
Merz told students that \u201cthe Americans clearly have no strategy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added that the \u201centire nation\u201d was being \u201chumiliated\u201d by Iran.<\/p>\n
In response, Trump took to his platform Truth Social, saying Merz thought it was \u201cOK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon\u201d and \u201cdoesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s talking about\u201d.<\/p>\n
This was soon followed by the US troop withdrawal announcement.<\/p>\n
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the order had come from Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect the withdrawal to be completed over the next six to twelve months,\u201d the spokesman added.<\/p>\n
Trump, a longtime critic of the Nato alliance, has been lashing out at allies over their refusal to participate in operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route.<\/p>\n
Iran has severely limited traffic through the waterway, responding to US and Israeli strikes that began on 28 February.<\/p>\n
The US has also enforced a naval blockade on Iranian ports in the Gulf.<\/p>\n
The post Germany says US troop withdrawal \u2018foreseeable\u2019 as Trump warns of more \u2018cuts\u2019<\/a> appeared first on KBC Digital<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Germany\u2019s defence minister has said the US decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from his country was \u201cforeseeable\u201d, as the Nato military alliance says it is seeking clarification from Washington. Speaking to the DPA news agency, Boris Pistorius also stressed \u201cthe presence of American soldiers in Europe, and particularly in Germany, is in our interest and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}