President Donald Trump made headlines earlier this summer when he instructed the Pentagon to withdraw about 10,000 troops from Germany by September.
This came about after the Trump administration spent years criticizing Germany for its lack of military spending as required for NATO members.
Such moves have been met with sharp criticism from interventionists in Congress and members of the military-industrial complex.
ZeroHedge noted that this new development “It also came out of ‘America First’ related promises made going back to the campaign trail wherein the president vowed to stop being the world’s global policeman and to ultimately ‘bring to troops home’ from far flung stations.”
In a Bloomberg Report, Trump declared that Germany has “taken advantage of us for many years” and told reporters “We don’t want to be the suckers anymore.” This prompted Trump’s move to withdraw approximately 12,000 troops from Germany.
In the process, the Pentagon warned that the troop pullback could take years and would involve troops being redeployed to other European countries and slightly over half returning to America, according to a defense official’s report.
According to the AP, this move by Trump is a significant “shakeup” and pointed to 6,400 troops coming back home, while 5,400 of the rest will be re-stationed to other nations.
Trump is following through with previous threats to pressure Germany to pay more for NATO as a prerequisite for keeping troops in the country.
In all honesty, the U.S should be withdrawing all troops from Germany and bringing them back, not re-deploying them to other countries.
The U.S. border needs a serious military presence, and troops generally stationed abroad can fill in the void.
