According to a report by the "Washington Post", the American Ministry of Defense is verifying the possibility of withdrawing the American troops stationed in Germany.
One of the options discussed is to return home a large part of the approximately 35.000 American soldiers stationed in the Federal Republic of Germany or to relocate a contingent of them to Poland, the newspaper reports.
The idea was put forward by Donald Trump at a meeting of US military advisers and representatives of the White House. The European members of NATO are worried about this step and are trying to clarify whether Trump is serious about this threat for a restructuring of the troops or it is about negotiation tactics before the NATO summit in July.
The Pentagon denies the news
According to the American newspaper "Washington Post", it is about an internal Pentagon study. A spokesman for the National Security Council denied that it had requested an analysis calling for the withdrawal of troops from Germany.
Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahin also denied this. But at the same time he said that the stationing of American troops abroad is regularly verified subject to the "cost-benefit" criterion. The US is connected as before with Germany and NATO, said Pahon.
American soldiers have been stationed in Germany since the end of World War II. Germany has the largest contingent of troops outside the United States.