Germany\u2019s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has downplayed the impact of the US decision to withdraw troops from Germany and Washington\u2019s plans to suspend the deployment of long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles in the country, insisting the moves will not weaken NATO\u2019s deterrence in Europe.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have absolutely no doubt that there will be no reduction in NATO\u2019s conventional deterrence capability in Europe,\u201d Wadephul said at a news conference in Athens, Greece, on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat will be offset one way or another in any case,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
His remarks came in response to questions about US President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany and reports that Washington has dropped plans to deploy long-range missiles in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must not overestimate individual measures,\u201d Wadephul said, noting that the troop withdrawal had been widely expected as part of a US global defense posture review.<\/p>\n
He also described the planned deployment of US long-range missiles as merely a \u201ctemporary measure\u201d until Europe develops its own similar capabilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will now first seek close dialogue with the United States to determine what decisions have been definitively made and what options we have to consider,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd second, we must view this as a new call to develop and make our own capabilities available more quickly. There is simply no way around this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tensions between the German government and the Trump administration escalated last week after Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized the American aggression against Iran for lacking a clear exit strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Merz said Tehran “humiliated” Washington with its negotiating tactics.<\/p>\n
Merz also cast doubt on a swift end to the conflict, stating: \u201cThe Iranians are obviously stronger than expected, and the Americans clearly don\u2019t have a truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, Trump said on social media that Merz \u201cdoesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pentagon subsequently announced it would pull back 5,000 troops from Germany, with Trump indicating that even larger reductions were forthcoming.<\/p>\n
US media also reported that the Trump administration intends to cancel a 2024 decision by then-President Joe Biden to deploy a battalion equipped with long-range Tomahawk weapons to Germany, which was presented as a deterrent against Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has downplayed the impact of the US decision to withdraw troops from Germany…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,190],"class_list":{"0":"post-74710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116518528275277771","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}