U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegset ordered the withdrawal of about 5,000 servicemen from Germany within a year.
Earlier, American President Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that the U.S. is considering reducing the number of its contingent in Germany, and that "a decision will be made soon."
"We expect the troop withdrawal to be completed within the next six to twelve months," said U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson Sean Parnell in his statement. This decision was made "after a thorough review of the presence of U.S. troops in Europe," he explained. According to Parnell, it "takes into account operational requirements as well as conditions on the ground."
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, in December 2025, approximately 68,000 American servicemen were permanently stationed at European bases, more than half of them—about 36,400—were in Germany. For comparison, in 1985, before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, 250,000 American soldiers were stationed in Germany.
Merz Responds Calmly to Trump's Threat to Withdraw Troops from Germany
The German government reacted calmly to Donald Trump's latest threat to withdraw some of its troops from Germany.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz, during a visit to a military training ground in Lower Saxony's Munster on April 30, emphasized that the Bundeswehr and the U.S. Army work on strategically important sites in Germany "shoulder to shoulder, in deep transatlantic cohesion"—and this is "to mutual benefit."
The statement from the White House came shortly after a spat between the two leaders: Merz reproached the American side for lacking a strategy in the U.S. and Israel's war against Iran, while Trump responded by accusing the chancellor of supporting the Iranian nuclear program.
The threat of a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany is not new: during his first presidential term, Trump repeatedly resorted to it, but ultimately the number of American soldiers in Germany only increased. In early April 2026, a senior U.S. official told Reuters that Trump had raised the issue of a partial troop withdrawal from Europe in internal discussions. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress has severely limited his options in this regard, reports "Deutsche Welle."
