{"id":9046,"date":"2026-04-30T17:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T17:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9046\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T17:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T17:57:11","slug":"trump-may-pull-us-troops-from-germany-over-row-with-merz-but-threat-carries-less-weight-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9046\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump may pull US troops from Germany over row with Merz, but threat carries less weight \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s threat this week to pull US<\/a> troops out of Germany<\/a>, following German criticism of the Iran<\/a> war, might not pack the punch such threats once did.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the security relationship between Germany and the United States is not as one-sided as in the past.<\/p>\n

Throughout the Iran conflict, Germany has let military bases on its soil be used to assist US attacks, providing crucial logistical support for Trump\u2019s war that other European nations have refused to give.<\/p>\n

Also, Germany\u2019s military spending has ballooned since T<\/a>rump<\/a> returned to the White House, and it has vowed to create the largest conventional army in Europe, aiming to reduce its dependence on US military protection. That process has proved so successful that a senior Pentagon official recently described Germany as a model for a Europe that takes more responsibility for its own defence.<\/p>\n

The menace of Trump\u2019s warning was also undermined by what happened the last time he made such a threat.<\/p>\n

Germany hosts some 35,000 US soldiers, an inheritance of the Cold War. It provides rent-free land for US bases and pays local staff to help the US troops who live there. Most of those troops serve US interests directly \u2013 staffing airbases that often send planes to the Middle East as well as military hospitals that often treat Americans injured on other continents.<\/p>\n

In 2020, during his first term, Trump tried to reduce that military presence, announcing plans to pull 12,000 troops from Germany. He called the country \u201cdelinquent\u201d in its military spending levels, for failing to match the agreed-upon goal for Nato members.<\/p>\n

The US Congress blocked the move. Trump lost the presidential election that autumn, and the Biden<\/a> administration cancelled the plan to pull troops out.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Hegseth denies Iran war is a \u2018quagmire\u2019 as costs to US hit $25bnOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"GermanGerman chancellor Friedrich Merz with US president Donald Trump. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Since then, German officials have increased the country\u2019s military spending commitments. Friedrich Merz<\/a>, who became chancellor a year ago, led an effort to relax government borrowing limits in order to invest heavily in re-armament. Germany helped to push other Nato allies to commit to ramping up spending on militaries, and on related infrastructure, to 5 per cent of their economies by 2035, the level that Trump had demanded.<\/p>\n

The efficiency of that effort led Elbridge Colby, an undersecretary at the defence department, to hail German officials Saturday for their spending and their war support.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter years of disarmament, Berlin is stepping up,\u201d Colby wrote in a social media thread.<\/p>\n

Nothing has changed militarily in the intervening days. What changed was that Merz made Trump angry.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the chancellor told a group of German high school students Iran had \u201chumiliated\u201d the United States with its negotiating posture in the war. He also questioned how Trump planned to end the conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Americans obviously have no strategy,\u201d Merz said.<\/p>\n

Trump responded by criticising Merz on social media. On Wednesday, he went further and threatened to pull troops. The United States was \u201cstudying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n

Shrinking the US military presence in Germany could be difficult because Trump needs congressional approval to reduce the total number of troops stationed in European countries. The latest National Defense Authorisation Act, which passed with bipartisan support last year, stipulates a minimum of 76,000 troops in Europe.<\/p>\n

Germany hosts nearly half that number. So if the United States were going to move troops out of the country, it would have to quickly find space for them elsewhere on the Continent \u2013 or seek congressional support for removing them from Europe altogether.<\/p>\n

Visiting troops in western Germany on Thursday, Merz did not address Trump\u2019s post directly, but he made a point of praising the alliance with the United States. \u201cAs you know, this transatlantic partnership is particularly close to our hearts \u2013 and to mine personally,\u201d said the chancellor, who was wearing a camouflage military jacket with his name on it.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0US and UK will always be staunch allies, king Charles says during address to congressOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s threat this week to pull US troops out of Germany, following German criticism of the Iran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,393,5,481,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-9046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-friedrich-merz","10":"tag-germany","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}