{"id":429017,"date":"2026-05-02T17:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T17:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429017\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T17:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T17:04:08","slug":"top-republicans-express-concern-after-us-orders-withdrawal-of-5000-troops-from-germany-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429017\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Republicans express concern after US orders withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US<\/a> has ordered the withdrawal of roughly 5,000 troops from Germany<\/a>, following Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s threats to reduce the American military presence in the country, as tensions escalate over the war with Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Friday that defence secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the withdrawal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision follows a thorough review of the department\u2019s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theatre requirements and conditions on the ground,\u201d Parnell said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect the withdrawal to be completed over the next six to 12 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parnell did not respond to specific questions about whether the personnel would be repositioned elsewhere in Europe.<\/p>\n

Responding to the Pentagon move, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said: \u201cIt was foreseeable that the US would withdraw troops from Europe, including Germany.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said that Europeans must take greater responsibility for their own security, and that Germany was \u201con the right track\u201d in this regard.<\/p>\n

The US plans were first reported earlier Friday by CBS News, which cited senior defence officials it did not name. Those officials cast the move as a demonstration of the US president\u2019s frustration with European allies who have baulked at his calls to do more to assist the US and Israel in their war on Iran, the report said.<\/p>\n

Two top Republican lawmakers expressed concern on Saturday \u200cabout the Pentagon\u2019s decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from Nato<\/a> ally Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very concerned by the decision to withdraw a US brigade from \u200bGermany,\u201d US senator Roger Wicker and US representative Mike Rogers said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

Wicker, a Republican elected from Mississippi, and Rogers, from Alabama, chair \u200bthe Senate and House Armed Services Committees, respectively.<\/p>\n

Wicker \u200band Rogers said that any significant change to the US military\u2019s presence in Europe must be reviewed and co-ordinated with Congress and US allies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect the Department to engage with its oversight committees in the days and weeks ahead on this decision and its implications for US deterrence \u200cand transatlantic security,\u201d they \u2060said in the statement.<\/p>\n

Even if Nato allies raised defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, building the capabilities to \u200ctake over conventional deterrence will take time, and prematurely cutting US forces in \u200bEurope \u201crisks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong \u200bsignal to [Russian president] Vladimir Putin<\/a>,\u201d they said in the statement.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Nato spokeswoman Allison Hart said the defence alliance was \u201cworking with the US to \u2060understand the details of their decision\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis adjustment underscores the need for \u2060Europe \u200bto continue to \u200binvest more in defence and take \u200con a greater share \u200bof the responsibility for our shared \u2060security \u2013 where \u2060we\u2019re \u200balready seeing progress since Allies agreed to invest 5 per cent of GDP at the Nato Summit in The Hague last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe \u200cremain confident in \u2060our ability to provide for our deterrence and defence as \u200cthis shift towards a stronger Europe in \u200ba stronger NATO continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump on Wednesday had said he was reviewing troop levels in Germany with an eye toward reducing those numbers. That announcement came just days after German chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> questioned Trump\u2019s handling of the Iran war in unusually blunt terms, saying the administration was being \u201chumiliated\u201d.<\/p>\n

About 35,000 troops \u2013 almost half the total of US forces in Europe \u2013 are stationed in Germany, where the US command for the region is headquartered. The US has relied heavily on its extensive network of bases and other facilities in Germany, a legacy of the Cold War, to prepare and launch operations against Iran.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s order is likely to face opposition in Congress. His last attempt to remove forces from Germany in 2020 was blocked by legislative opposition.<\/p>\n

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the armed services committee, said in a statement that Trump \u201cshould immediately reverse this foolish decision\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithdrawing thousands of American troops from one of our most important strategic positions in the middle of a war is a serious mistake that will reverberate well beyond this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move is Trump\u2019s latest challenge to the Nato alliance, whose other members he has long accused of not doing enough to pay for their own defence. More recently, he threatened to take Greenland<\/a> from alliance partner Denmark and criticised allies for not doing more to help in the Iran campaign.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Germany\u2019s Merz questioned how Trump planned to end the conflict. \u201cThe Americans obviously have no strategy,\u201d Merz said.<\/p>\n

Trump then took to Truth Social, his social media site, to vent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d he wrote on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Later, he added: \u201cThe Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia\/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, while announcing the troops decision, a senior Pentagon official said that Germany\u2019s failure to contribute to the Iran war effort had frustrated the United States<\/a>, and that the country\u2019s rhetoric was inappropriate and unhelpful.<\/p>\n

The announcement, and the criticism of Germany, represents a shift for Pentagon officials, who recently had praised Germany\u2019s efforts to increase military spending and take over more of the burden of supporting Ukraine.<\/p>\n

German foreign minister Johann Wadephul had played down Trump\u2019s earlier warning, saying on Thursday that his government would take a \u201ccalm\u201d look at the possibility of reducing US forces. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe US needs these bases,\u201d he said, citing the key facilities of Ramstein, Landstuhl and Grafenwohr.<\/p>\n

Germany provides land for the bases rent-free, as well as staff to support the American forces. <\/p>\n

Even if the Pentagon pulls 5,000 troops out of Germany, the country would still host the second-largest US troop presence in the world, at more than 30,000, behind only Japan. \u2013 The New York Times and agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US has ordered the withdrawal of roughly 5,000 troops from Germany, following Donald Trump\u2019s threats to reduce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,8864,292,42,11829,43,3026,40,38,41,39,115,90,5936],"class_list":["post-429017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-news","tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organisation-nato","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}