{"id":9497,"date":"2026-05-02T01:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T01:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9497\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T01:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T01:10:08","slug":"us-to-withdraw-5000-troops-from-germany-amid-trump-spat-with-merz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9497\/","title":{"rendered":"US to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany amid Trump spat with Merz"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States is withdrawing 5,000 troops from NATO ally Germany as a rift over the Iran war widens between President Donald Trump and Europe.<\/p>\n

Mr 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<\/p>\n

Iran war live updates: <\/a>For the latest news on the Middle East crisis, read our blog.<\/p>\n

Mr Merz also said he did not see what exit strategy Washington was pursuing.<\/p>\n

A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said recent German rhetoric had been “inappropriate and unhelpful”.<\/p>\n

“The president is rightly reacting to these counterproductive remarks,” the official said.<\/p>\n

Announcing the withdrawal on Friday, local time, the Pentagon said it was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

German defence minister accuses Trump of lacking exit strategy <\/a><\/p>\n

Boris Pistorius says Germany will only help to secure the Strait of Hormuz once the US and Iran strike a ceasefire deal.<\/p>\n

Germany is home to some 35,000 active-duty US military personnel, more than anywhere else in Europe.<\/p>\n

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 build-up by then-president Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

The official also cast the decision in terms of the Trump administration’s push for Europe to become the main security provider on the continent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

German ties fray<\/p>\n

Mr Trump has singled out Germany even as he has chastised other NATO allies for not sending their navies to help open the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The waterway, a choke point for global oil shipments, has remained virtually shut, causing market turmoil and unprecedented disruption in energy supplies.<\/p>\n

Mr Merz has said Germans and Europeans were not consulted before the US and Israel started attacking Iran on February 28, and that he had conveyed his scepticism about the conflict directly to Mr Trump afterwards.<\/p>\n

“The president has been very clear about his frustrations about our allies’ rhetoric and failure to provide support for US operations that benefit them,” the senior Pentagon official said.<\/p>\n

Europe rejects Trump’s Hormuz warship plan<\/a><\/p>\n

Donald Trump tells US allies to “get involved quickly” in unblocking the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel, while warning members of NATO the alliance faces a “very bad” future if they do not do their bit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Trump has long wanted to reduce the US troop presence in Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He pushed for a reduction at the end of his first term, but that cut was never enacted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Trump lost the election and Mr Biden reversed the plan.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that he was reviewing US troop levels in Germany surprised German military officials who spoke to Reuters, citing what they called constructive meetings at the Pentagon earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

They argue that Germany has done more than other allies to support the US war in Iran, including by allowing the use of bases and giving permission for overflights.<\/p>\n

Germany is also home to a huge military hospital in Landstuhl.<\/p>\n

As part of Mr Trump’s withdrawal decision, 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.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States is withdrawing 5,000 troops from NATO ally Germany as a rift over the Iran war…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,5,253,9018,619,8971,92,2366],"class_list":{"0":"post-9497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-germany","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iraq-war","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-troops","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-withdrawal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9497","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=9497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}