Senior US officials blindsided by Trump’s decision to cut US troop levels in Germany
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President Donald Trump’s decision to cut U.S. troop levels in Germany blindsided a number of senior national security officials, according to a number of sources familiar with the matter, and the Pentagon had yet to receive a formal order to carry it out, Reuters has learned.
Trump decided to remove 9,500 troops from Germany, one of America’s strongest allies, reducing the number there to 25,000 from 34,500, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.
That official said it was the result of months of work by the U.S. military leadership and had nothing to do with tensions between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who thwarted his plan to host an in-person Group of Seven (G7) summit this month.
A key House ally of President Donald Trump and other congressional lawmakers criticized reported White House plans to withdraw thousands of U.S. service members from Germany, describing it as “a short-sighted decision which will hurt military readiness.”
But other sources familiar with the matter said a number of U.S. officials at the White House, State Department and Pentagon were surprised by the decision and they offered explanations ranging from Trump’s pique over the G7 to the influence of Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany and a Trump loyalist.
