{"id":15180,"date":"2026-05-01T11:38:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/15180\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T11:38:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T11:38:20","slug":"trump-threatens-sanchez-and-meloni-with-us-troops-withdrawal-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/15180\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens S\u00e1nchez and Meloni with US troops withdrawal \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>S\u00e1nchez has styled himself as a European <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/pedro-sanchez-donald-trump-nato-spain-nato-membership\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">counterweight to Trump<\/a>, while Meloni \u2014 one of Trump&#8217;s European staunchest allies after his reelection in 2024 \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/italys-giorgia-meloni-pivots-donald-trump-reset-premiership\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has been distancing herself from the U.S. president recently<\/a>, in a bid to save her premiership ahead of the national election expected in 2027. Merz said the U.S. is getting &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/us-being-humiliated-iran-germany-merz-war\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">humiliated<\/a>&#8221; by Iran in the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ansa.it\/sito\/notizie\/mondo\/2026\/05\/01\/trump-litalia-non-e-stata-daiuto-probabile-il-ritiro-delle-truppe-usa._c581e430-b0b5-44de-b492-27d302f656ac.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">responded to the comments<\/a>, telling media outlet ANSA he &#8220;wouldn\u2019t understand the reasons&#8221; for a possible withdrawal of U.S. troops from Italy.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has <a href=\"https:\/\/usafacts.org\/articles\/where-are-us-military-members-stationed-and-why\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">around 12,000 armed forces<\/a> personnel stationed in Italy, with only Germany having a higher number in Europe at over 36,000. Spain hosts about 3,800 troops, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/dwp.dmdc.osd.mil\/dwp\/app\/dod-data-reports\/workforce-reports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">an overview published by the Pentagon<\/a> in December.<\/p>\n<p>Merz long <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/germany-friedrich-merz-loses-hard-won-favor-with-us-donald-trump\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">walked a tightrope<\/a> to keep his relationship with Trump smooth, and Berlin, unlike Rome and Madrid, does allow the U.S. to use its Ramstein Air Base to coordinate military operations against Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Any U.S. withdrawal from Germany would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/us-donald-trump-threat-pull-troops-out-germany-crashes-into-reality\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cost billions and take years<\/a>, while weakening a key strategic advantage in its conflict with Iran and its ability to project military power globally.<\/p>\n<p>Defense officials told POLITICO that there are no immediate plans for a drawdown but that they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/04\/30\/trump-germany-troop-pullout-pentagon-shocked-00900619\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">take Trump\u2019s comments seriously<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"S\u00e1nchez has styled himself as a European counterweight to Trump, while Meloni \u2014 one of Trump&#8217;s European staunchest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[192,194,196,915,8786,865,4446,31,866,204,205,6667,868,17,8733,25,2879,26,27,211],"class_list":{"0":"post-15180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-defense","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-energy","11":"tag-foreign-policy","12":"tag-friedrich-merz","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-giorgia-meloni","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-italy","17":"tag-military","18":"tag-pedro-sanchez","19":"tag-pentagon","20":"tag-poland","21":"tag-spain","22":"tag-transatlantic-relations","23":"tag-u-s-foreign-policy","24":"tag-ukraine","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-war","27":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}