Trump has announced he will withdraw tens of thousands of troops from Germany because he feels Germany isn’t paying their fair share:
NY POST – President Trump on Wednesday announced he will withdraw tens of thousands of US troops from Germany — accusing the European nation of taking advantage of his administration by not paying their fair share to NATO.
Speaking during a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda in the White House Rose Garden, Trump ripped Germany for spending billions on Russian energy while asking the US to protect it from Russia.
“We’re going to be reducing Germany very substantially down to about 25,000 troops. We actually had 52,000 but we’ll be moving it down to about 25,000,” Trump told reporters.
Goodbye Germany. Hello Poland.
The US troops will be sent to Poland or will return to the US, Trump said.
“They’re spending billions of dollars to buy Russian energy and then we’re supposed to defend them from Russia so that doesn’t work too well,” Trump said.
The move had been anticipated for weeks, with the president earlier this month directing the Pentagon to cut the number of troops in Germany by 9,500 — a move condemned by both House Republicans and German lawmakers.
The president on Wednesday hit Germany for not paying enough dues to NATO, the military alliance created in the wake of WWII, estimating it owed trillions while the US footed the majority of the bill.
“You should be paying 2 percent [of GDP] and they’re paying a little bit more than 1 percent,” he said, calling it a “tremendous delinquency.”
“It really isn’t treating the United States fairly. The United States is a major participant in that we pay more than anybody else by far and have for many many years,” he said.
“So we defend Europe, but Europe also takes tremendous advantage of the United States on trade like you wouldn’t believe,” he continued.
“I would imagine they’d like to wait until after the election so that maybe they could deal with somebody else than President Trump but after the election they’ll just have to pay more,” he added.
I get why Trump is doing this, but the only concern I have of withdrawing this many troops is that this move may push the European Union to create their own military force.
I am glad, however, that Trump would redeploy many of the troops in Poland, which is right in Russia’s backyard. Vladimir can’t be too happy about that.