{"id":9646,"date":"2026-05-02T11:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9646\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T11:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:01:16","slug":"europe-must-be-able-to-defend-itself-german-defense-minister-says-as-us-plans-troop-withdrawal-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/9646\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe must be able to defend itself, German defense minister says as US plans troop withdrawal \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened a drawdown in U.S. troops amid a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/germany-friedrich-merz-loses-hard-won-favor-with-us-donald-trump\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">public row<\/a> with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/us-being-humiliated-iran-germany-merz-war\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/us-being-humiliated-iran-germany-merz-war\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. was being \u201chumiliated\u201d by Iran<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon\u2019s announcement would still leave around 33,000 U.S. troops in Germany, reversing a buildup that began under President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n<p>A European Commission spokesperson told POLITICO the U.S. military footprint in Europe was a \u201csignificant contribution to NATO deterrence and defense\u201d and formed the \u201cfoundation of collective defense for 23 EU Member States who are also Allies\u201d in NATO. <\/p>\n<p>The spokesperson added that EU countries were meeting their NATO commitments by increasing military spending at \u201can unprecedented pace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk deplored the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/donaldtusk\/status\/2050517932485038462?s=20\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/donaldtusk\/status\/2050517932485038462?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">&#8220;disastrous trend&#8221;<\/a> in Europe-U.S. relations. &#8220;The <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/donaldtusk\/status\/2050517932485038462?s=20\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/donaldtusk\/status\/2050517932485038462?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">greatest threat<\/a> to the transatlantic community [is] the ongoing disintegration of our alliance,&#8221; Tusk said in an <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/donaldtusk\/status\/2050517932485038462?s=20\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/donaldtusk\/status\/2050517932485038462?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">X post Saturday<\/a>. &#8220;We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the withdrawal in response to \u201cconditions on the ground\u201d after reviewing U.S. troop buildup in Europe. \u201cWe expect the withdrawal to be completed over the next six to 12 months,\u201d Parnell said.<\/p>\n<p>Chris Lunday and Victor Jack contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened a drawdown in U.S. troops amid a public row with German Chancellor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[419,420,479,615,393,5,253,8472,619,8876,8518,626,8325,9104,481,2379],"class_list":{"0":"post-9646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-boris-pistorius","9":"tag-defense","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-footprint","12":"tag-friedrich-merz","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-joe-biden","16":"tag-military","17":"tag-pentagon","18":"tag-pete-hegseth","19":"tag-security","20":"tag-transatlantic-relations","21":"tag-u-s-politics","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9646","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=9646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}