U.S. withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany signals worsening relations with Europe

By Satyaki Chakraborty

The U.S. decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany announced on Friday, marks further deterioration in U.S. relations with Europe and NATO in the context of the Iran war as also the Russian war in Ukraine. Trump indicated his displeasure with the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NATO earlier but his precipitating the withdrawal of troops was caused by Merz’s caustic comments on U.S. role in Iran. German Chancellor said that the U.S. had been outplayed by Tehran in war and what was happening was nothing but humiliation of USA.

Trump took the comments personally. Though the Pentagon officials have been trying to restrain Trump from taking any drastic action which can disrupt ties with NATO, the maverick President took the decision to spite the German chancellor with whom he has been in a spat from the beginning of 2026. Trump is of German origin. His grandfather came to the USA in search of fortune. The German media even mentioned in its commentaries that his ancestors were tried in Germany for fraud and malpractices. Trump was annoyed earlier at such family attacks on him.

Germany is the biggest economy of Europe and in NATO also, Germany has been a strong votary for defending the security. In fact, Chancellor Merz has passed a high n defence budget for the next three years after Trump wanted all NATO members to hike their defence spending and share more the total costs of NATO. Trump’s position was that the U.S. was disproportionately sharing the cost of running NATO without being a part of Europe.

The US military footprint in Germany dates back to the second world war in 1945. When the Nazi regime of Germany surrendered in May in 1945, there were 1.6m US troops in war ravaged Germany. But the number soon came down to three lakh only. According to the US defence data, at the end of 2025, the U.S. had 36,400 active soldiers stationed in Germany which was half of the total of 68,000 active personnel stations in different bases of Europe. This means that even after the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany, the US will have 31, 400 active troops stationed in various bases..

According to Pentagon data mentioned in The Guardian, Five of the seven US army garrisons in Europe are in Germany (the others are in Belgium and Italy). Besides Stuttgart, the biggest US installations include the huge Ramstein airbase, the HQ for US air forces in Europe, which houses 8,500 air force personnel.

Grafenwöhr, Vilseck and Hohenfels, run by the Bavaria garrison, are part of the US military’s largest training area in Europe, while the Wiesbaden garrison is US army Europe and Africa’s HQ. Landstuhl medical centre is the largest US military hospital outside the US. The reality is that the US military operations in other parts of the globe, including Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan have been less costly as a result of using the bases in Europe.

That way, while Europe has gained in terms of security through US troops presence, US has also greatly benefitted by using the bases in n Europe to launch its global operations. These US bases are logistically more comfortable for the U.S. military strategists. So for US it is not a one way street as Trump is claiming

According to European defence analysts, Trump is just putting high pressure on Germany to fall in line by withdrawing n5,000 troops out of the total of 36, 400 stationed in Germany. In fact, in the present era of cybertech war, just number of troops does not matter, the base and the high tech weapons matter. So the US is still in comfortable position to use the base in Germany for its global operations.

The observers say that Trump is in fact worried at the position taken by the Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez who has ruled out any use of Spanish base by the USA for Iran war. Spain is a member of NATO. Trump wants that this Spanish disregard for US requirements should not influence NATO in its relationship with USA. The twists and turns in US-NATO relationship will continue. (IPA Service)