The permanent move would bring the total to no more than 25,000 troops.
President Trump has signed off on a plan to permanently withdraw up to one-third of about 34,500 U.S. troops currently based in Germany, bringing the total down to no more than 25,000, according to U.S. officials.
Trump pledged during his last presidential campaign to end U.S. involvement in what he has called America’s “forever wars,” primarily in the Middle East and Afghanistan. He has repeatedly threatened to end or reduce the peacetime defensive deployments of troops in Asia and Europe, charging that those countries were not paying enough for what he has described as U.S. protection.Until now, however, he has made only small reductions — along with a number of increases — in U.S.
As of late Friday, Germany had not been officially informed of the withdrawal order, which the Wall Street Journal, which first reported it Friday, said had been formally signed by Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien after the president approved it.It was unclear whether members of Congress had been told of the withdrawal. But as word of the plan became public, Sen. Jack Reed , the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Trump’s order “petty and preposterous.
U.S. troops in Germany, numbering 235,000 during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, have been gradually reduced over the years. German officials have argued that their primary function was not to defend that country, but to defend U.S. interests by being close to Russia, serving as a transfer station and training facility for American deployments worldwide and the site of massive U.S. military hospital facilities. Germany is the headquarters for U.S.
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