{"id":9461,"date":"2026-05-01T23:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9461\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T23:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T23:58:13","slug":"us-orders-withdrawal-of-5000-troops-from-germany-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9461\/","title":{"rendered":"US orders withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US<\/a> has ordered the drawdown of roughly 5,000 troops from Germany<\/a>, following through on president Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s threats to reduce the American military presence in the country, as tensions escalate over the war with Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Friday that defence secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the withdrawal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision follows a thorough review of the department\u2019s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground,\u201d Parnell said. \u201cWe expect the withdrawal to be completed over the next six to twelve months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parnell did not respond to specific questions about whether the personnel would be repositioned elsewhere in Europe.<\/p>\n

The US plans were first reported earlier Friday by CBS News, which cited senior defence officials it did not name. Those officials cast the move as a demonstration of the president\u2019s frustration with European allies who have balked at his calls to do more to assist the US and Israel in their war on Iran, the report said.<\/p>\n

Trump on Wednesday had said he was reviewing troop levels in Germany with an eye toward reducing those numbers. That announcement came just days after German chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> questioned Trump\u2019s handling of the Iran war in unusually blunt terms, saying the administration was being \u201chumiliated\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some 35,000 troops \u2013 almost half the total of US forces in Europe \u2013 are stationed in Germany, where the US command for the region is headquartered. The US has relied heavily on its extensive network of bases and other facilities in Germany, a legacy of the Cold War, to prepare and launch operations against Iran.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s order is likely to face opposition in Congress. His last attempt to remove forces from Germany in 2020 was blocked by legislative opposition.<\/p>\n

The move is Trump\u2019s latest challenge to the Nato alliance, whose other members he has long accused of not doing enough to pay for their own defence. More recently, he threatened to take Greenland from alliance partner Denmark and criticised allies for not doing more to help in the Iran campaign.<\/p>\n

Trump has sparred publicly with Merz over the wars in Iran and Ukraine and the future of Nato. At the same time, Merz has led a huge increase in German defence spending, drawing praise from US officials. However, Merz\u2019s recent comments that the US lacked a strategy for the war drew Trump\u2019s ire, triggering the threat to remove US troops.<\/p>\n

German foreign minister Johann Wadephul had played down Trump\u2019s earlier warning, saying on Thursday that his government would take a \u201ccalm\u201d look at the possibility of reducing US forces. \u201cThe US needs these bases,\u201d he said, citing the key facilities of Ramstein, Landstuhl and Grafenwohr.<\/p>\n

Germany provides land for the bases rent-free, as well as staff to support the American forces. \u2013 Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US has ordered the drawdown of roughly 5,000 troops from Germany, following through on president Donald Trump\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,393,5,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-9461","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-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461","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=9461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}