President Trump said Wednesday he is considering whether to remove some American troops from Germany after its leader criticized the U.S. campaign in Iran.
“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” he said on social media .
The president didn’t specify a timeline for reducing troop levels in his Truth Social post.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz drew the president’s ire after he said on Monday that the U.S. didn’t have an effective strategy to end the Iran war. “An entire nation is being humiliated by Iranian leaders and the so-called revolutionary guards,” Merz told students at a school in western Germany, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps .
Trump hit back at the chancellor on Tuesday, saying on social media, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”
Germany is a major NATO ally and has been heeding U.S. calls to step up military spending and strengthen its armed forces. It is also an important hub for U.S. military operations in Europe and beyond. The U.S. has major military bases and headquarters in Germany, and the country has substantial training areas for American and allied troops. Germany also hosts the largest U.S. military hospital abroad, which has treated casualties from the Iran conflict.
The U.S. currently has between 30,000 and 35,000 troops stationed in Germany and thousands of Pentagon civilian personnel.
Trump in 2020 ordered around 12,000 troops to be removed from Germany following tensions with the country over military spending and other security issues. Congress blocked that decision. Former President Joe Biden reversed the order after he took office in 2021.
Before Trump’s Wednesday post, administration officials said that the White House considered a plan to punish some North Atlantic Treaty Organization members that Trump thinks were unhelpful to the U.S. and Israel in the Iran war, The Wall Street Journal reported .
