{"id":932774,"date":"2026-05-02T11:22:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/932774\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T11:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:22:22","slug":"germanys-pistorius-downplays-us-troop-cut-shifts-focus-to-europes-defense-push-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/932774\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Pistorius downplays US troop cut, shifts focus to Europe\u2019s defense push \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened a drawdown in U.S. troops amid a public row<\/a> with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the U.S. was being \u201chumiliated\u201d by Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

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. The spokesperson added that EU countries were meeting their NATO commitments by increasing military spending at \u201can unprecedented pace.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Reacting to the Pentagon’s announcement, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk deplored the “disastrous trend”<\/a> in Europe-U.S. relations. “The greatest threat<\/a> to the transatlantic community [is] the ongoing disintegration of our alliance,” Tusk said in an X post on Saturday<\/a>. “We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend.”<\/p>\n

Trump has also threatened to remove U.S. troops from Spain and Italy, in renewed attacks against Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez and Italian leader Giorgia Meloni. Madrid and Rome, like Berlin, have been critical of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. <\/p>\n

Speaking to\u00a0reporters in the Oval Office<\/a> on Thursday, Trump said he would “probably” remove American troops from Spain and Italy. He said Italy had “not been of any help to us,” and accused Spain of being “absolutely horrible.” Both Spain and Italy have denied U.S. military planes that are taking part in the Iran war from using their bases.<\/p>\n

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…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[7668,473,32,2000,299,5187,55223,1945,1824,774,714,2597,8723,602,811,6717,1772,49,231032],"class_list":["post-932774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-boris-pistorius","tag-defense","tag-donald-trump","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-footprint","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-iran","tag-joe-biden","tag-military","tag-pentagon","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-security","tag-transatlantic-relations","tag-u-s-politics","tag-united-states","tag-war-in-iran"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116504726678705834","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=932774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}