WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump declared on Thursday the United States would send an additional 5,000 troops to Poland, an apparent reversal following recent moves by his administration to slash the number of US troops in Europe.<\/p>\n
Writing on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, Trump said the decision was based on the US’s relationship with Warsaw\u2019s right-wing populist President Karol Nawrocki, whom he backed during presidential elections last year.<\/p>\n
He did not give further details on whether the additional troops were part of the previous planned deployment or a different operation.<\/p>\n
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte welcomed the move ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers in Sweden, adding the trajectory toward Europe becoming less reliant on the US “will continue”.<\/p>\n
Trump’s announcement comes one week after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stopped the scheduled deployment of a combat team expected to rotate through Poland, a decision his department said was based on frustration with European nations who have \u201cnot stepped up when America needed them.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also follows an announcement by Trump earlier this month that he was pulling 5,000 troops from Germany, whose Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the United States was being \u201chumiliated\u201d in its war with Iran, angering Trump.<\/p>\n
In contrast, Trump said the deployment to Poland, a key funnel for European aid to neighboring Ukraine, was based on his good relationship with President Nawrocki.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,\u201d Trump posted.<\/p>\n
It is unclear where the 5,000 troops that Trump mentioned will come from or how it will change US troop numbers in Europe. The surprise announcement creates further uncertainty about the US posture in Europe, after Trump soured on NATO allies who spoke out against the Iran war or failed to provide what he sees as sufficient help.<\/p>\n
Polish ministers seemed to indicate that the announcement would not substantially change troop numbers in Poland.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s foreign minister, Rados\u0142aw Sikorski, thanked Trump for his \u201cannouncement that the presence of American troops in Poland will be maintained more or less at previous levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll\u2019s well that ends well,\u201d he told reporters before a meeting of NATO\u2019s foreign ministers in Sweden Friday.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Polish Defense Minister W\u0142adys\u0142aw Kosiniak-Kamysz said, according to Reuters, that Poland won\u2019t lose any US troops. \u201cOne thing is certain, Poland is certainly not losing what it had \u2013 around 10,000 soldiers,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also attending that NATO meeting, where he \u201cwill discuss the need for increased defense investment and greater burden sharing in the Alliance,\u201d according to a department spokesperson.<\/p>\n
Any troop movement is \u201cnot a punitive thing,\u201d Rubio told reporters, \u201cit\u2019s just something that\u2019s ongoing\u201d as the US spreads its resources to meet its \u201cglobal commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLike any alliance, it has to be good for everyone who\u2019s involved, it has to be a clear understanding of what the expectations are,\u201d he said, adding that there was a space for NATO cooperation on the \u201cdefense industrial base.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2023, the US established the US Army Garrison Poland, solidifying its military footprint in the country. The US typically has about 10,000 troops stationed in Poland.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki thanked Trump in a post on X Thursday, calling the US-Poland alliance \u201ca vital pillar of security for every Polish home and for all of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood alliances are those based on cooperation, mutual respect, and a commitment to our shared security,\u201d Nawrocki said.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki was elected in June 2025 and visited the Oval Office for a meeting with Trump in September, where he thanked Trump for his endorsement.<\/p>\n
Last week, Hegseth abruptly canceled two US military deployments to Europe and ordered the removal of other personnel from the continent, reducing the number of US troops in Europe by roughly 5,000.<\/p>\n
The memo also canceled the future deployment to Germany of a battalion that specializes in firing long-range rockets and missiles, the defense officials said, and directed that a command in Europe overseeing those capabilities be removed from the continent.<\/p>\n
The decision by the Pentagon to cancel scheduled troop deployments without consulting Congress prompted criticism by Republican lawmakers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump declared on Thursday the United States would send an additional 5,000 troops to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5799,6126,6793,6867,6869,74,6868,9,6866,2892,5744,718,851],"class_list":["post-8458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-5799","tag-6126","tag-confusion","tag-deepening","tag-deployments","tag-europe","tag-over","tag-poland","tag-sending","tag-to","tag-troops","tag-trump","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}