{"id":9574,"date":"2026-05-02T07:22:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T07:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9574\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T07:22:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T07:22:57","slug":"trump-orders-us-to-pull-thousands-of-troops-out-of-germany-after-row-with-merz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9574\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump orders US to pull thousands of troops out of Germany after row with Merz"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The United States will withdraw 5,000 troops from Nato<\/a> ally Germany<\/a>, the Pentagon announced on Friday, as a rift over the Iran<\/a> war widens between \u2060Donald Trump<\/a> and Europe.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump had threatened a drawdown in forces earlier this week after sparring with German<\/a> chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a>, who said on Monday the Iranians were humiliating the US in talks to end the two-month-old war.<\/p>\n

A senior Pentagon \u2060official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said \u200brecent \u2060German rhetoric had been “inappropriate and unhelpful”.<\/p>\n

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

\"MoreMore than 35,000 US troops are currently in Germany (Getty)<\/p>\n

Germany is the US military’s biggest basing location in Europe, serving as a key training hub with more than 35,000 active-duty military personnel.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump has cracked down on Nato allies <\/a>for not sending their navies to help open the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict.<\/p>\n

The waterway has remained virtually shut since 28 February, causing severe \u200bdisruption in energy supplies in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world. <\/p>\n

The US Navy is currently blocking exports of Iranian crude oil. On Friday \u200cthe US Treasury told shippers that they risked sanctions if they paid tolls to Iran to pass through the strait.<\/p>\n

Mr Merz has been critical of the US and Israeli attack on Iran, saying on Monday that US officials were travelling to Pakistan and leaving without results.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe German army training at a military base in Munster (Reuters)<\/p>\n

He also said he did not see \u200cwhat exit strategy the US was \u200bpursuing in the Iran \u200cwar, comments that \u2060underlined deep divisions between Washington \u2060and its European Nato allies, amid growing tension \u200bover Ukraine and tariffs.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump said on Thursday in a Truth Social post that Mr Merz should focus more on ending the war in Ukraine and \u201chis broken Country\u201d rather than interfering with negotiations.<\/p>\n

“The Chancellor of Germany should \u200bspend more time on ending the war with Russia\/Ukraine (Where \u200che has been totally ineffective!), and \u2060fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and \u2060less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran \u200cNuclear threat, thereby \u200bmaking the World, including Germany, a \u200csafer place!”<\/p>\n

On Friday, Mr Trump said he would increase tariffs on cars and trucks from the European Union to 25 per cent next week from the previously \u2060agreed 15 per cent, a move that will hit Germany hardest.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon said the \u2060withdrawal of troops from Germany was expected to be completed over the next six to twelve \u200bmonths. The drawdown is expected to bring US troop levels in Europe back to roughly pre-2022 levels, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a buildup by then-president Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

A \u200cbrigade combat team will \u200cbe pulled out of Germany, and a long-range fires battalion that the Biden administration had planned to begin deploying to Germany later this year, will no longer move\u2060, the official said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[94,1426,9070,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-9574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-defence","10":"tag-domestic-politics","11":"tag-germany"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9574","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=9574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}