{"id":9981,"date":"2025-03-03T11:52:01","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T03:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=9981"},"modified":"2025-03-03T11:52:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T03:52:05","slug":"uncertainty-over-trumps-plans-for-u-s-troops-in-europe-fuels-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=9981","title":{"rendered":"Uncertainty over Trump\u2019s plans for U.S. troops in Europe fuels anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BRUSSELS \u2014 The Trump administration\u2019s widening split with European allies and suggestions of dialing back U.S. troop numbers have fueled European nervousness about how much the continent can still rely on the 80-year-old bargain with the United States that has underpinned its security since World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

European leaders are in the uncomfortable position of having more questions than answers about what President Donald Trump plans to do with U.S. troops on the continent. If a drawdown happens, it could be anywhere from just a symbolic withdrawal to Europe\u2019s worst fears, and the fallout will depend on how many troops and how fast, officials and analysts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all, European leaders want to ensure that if some kind of drawdown does take place, it will not be the product of U.S. negotiations with the Kremlin. Trump\u2019s move toward realignment<\/a> with Russia has fed into the European nightmare of Washington accepting Moscow\u2019s demands for NATO to roll back from Eastern Europe in a deal that leaves Russia\u2019s neighbors vulnerable before Europeans can beef up their defenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is what they have in mind when they say nothing about European security without Europeans in the room,\u201d said Camille Grand, a former NATO official who is now with the European Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many NATO allies left a meeting with<\/a> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month believing that Washington could pull thousands of troops from Europe in the coming years, officials said. Hegseth conveyed that his European counterparts should expect a review and eventual reduction of the American military footprint as U.S. interests shift<\/a> and the administration asks Europeans to take charge of their security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite assurances from Trump officials of no imminent pullout, the president\u2019s dizzying reshaping<\/a> of alliances<\/a>, including his latest clash with<\/a> Kyiv, has reinforced European convictions that they can\u2019t predict what Trump will ultimately do. At this critical juncture, the United States\u2019 longtime partners are doing a balancing act<\/a>: trying to bend Trump to their side while preparing for a United States that may no longer be reliable and could even be antagonistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift has triggered existential warnings from European leaders about the future of NATO and the transatlantic relationship<\/a>, as they scramble to bolster their militaries and find billions<\/a> of euros to modernize their arsenals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vice President JD Vance has brought another element to the debate: Along with scolding European leaders<\/a> for shunning the far right<\/a>, he has tied the future of U.S. troops to European policymaking. The messaging compounds European alarm<\/a> that its security hinges on the U.S. administration\u2019s views of its efforts to regulate tech or hate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are thousands upon thousands of American troops in Germany today,\u201d Vance said last month. \u201cDo you think that the American taxpayer is going to stand for that if you get thrown in jail in Germany for posting a mean tweet? Of course they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany has more than 35,000 U.S. troops, the largest number in Europe, on a host of bases throughout the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has dismissed the idea of withdrawing all U.S. troops from Europe in a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019d have to do that. I wouldn\u2019t want to do that,\u201d he has said when asked if he\u2019d consider a complete retreat. \u201cBut that question\u2019s never really come up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the prospect of Putin pushing NATO out of the Western military alliance\u2019s eastern flank may seem distant for now, some European officials warn they must still make contingencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Trump moves to negotiate with Russia to halt the war in Ukraine, Russian officials maintain that they want to eliminate \u201croot causes\u201d of the conflict. In Eastern European and Baltic states, fears run deep that Moscow will make demands<\/a> beyond Ukraine and seek to roll back the expansion of NATO there in the aftermath of the Soviet Union\u2019s collapse. Many of Russia\u2019s neighbors have drastically boosted defense budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflecting the uncertainty, one European diplomat said there was \u201cno way\u201d the United States would order a major withdrawal because Washington needs its footprint here, too, while another said Europeans should be planning for the worst anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Uncertainty over Trump\u2019s plans for U.S. troops in Europe fuels anxiety\u00a9\u00a0Sean Gallup\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The expansive U.S. military presence goes far beyond protecting Europe, diplomats note. It\u2019s also about projecting American power and serving U.S. interests. The Ramstein Air Base in Germany, a critical U.S. hub in Europe, has been regularly used for U.S. operations far outside the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except for a rebound early in Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, the U.S. deployment in Europe has been declining since the end of the Cold War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. administrations long before Trump 2.0 warned Europeans that priorities would shift elsewhere, including to the Indo-Pacific. But European leaders find themselves insufficiently equipped and are realizing that a U.S. pivot could come more abruptly than expected. Some hope they could persuade the administration that any plans to move forces would involve a discussion over allowing time to prepare to fill gaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three European diplomats said they expect the surge of about 20,000 U.S. troops announced by the Biden administration early in the Ukraine war to be withdrawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would not be surprised if at some point [those troops] go back to their home base in America,\u201d said a NATO diplomat. The forces were sent at a height of emergency planning, so if they leave \u201cit would be, so to speak, a return to normalcy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If European troops were to send a postwar force to Ukraine <\/a>to back a ceasefire, that could also hinder efforts to fill any U.S. gaps elsewhere, which will become part of the push-pull in European talks with the Trump administration, analysts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside forces spread out across American or NATO-allied bases in Europe, there\u2019s also a critical contingent involved in command-and-control. The number of U.S. forces in Europe has fluctuated between about 75,000 and 105,000 since 2022, with about 63,000 permanently assigned while others rotate in and out, U.S. European Command said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their mere presence can carry more weight than exact numbers. \u201cIt\u2019s the sort of physical embodiment of the commitment to European security,\u201d Grand said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But beyond troops, Washington brings high-end capabilities in which Europe is lagging, including for surveillance and long-range strikes, analysts and officials say. It also brings a promise of reinforcements that would be key to NATO quick-response plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In European nations that have long relied on Washington to check Russian power, questions are simmering about whether they would get U.S. backup in a future crisis or have to stand alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the end of the Cold War meant to herald a less belligerent world, the armed forces of European nations such as Britain and Germany shrank, as many invested in other priorities over weapons systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

European governments have hiked military spending in recent years and defenses aren\u2019t in such dire straits that \u201cthe world is falling apart if Trump pulls another brigade,\u201d Grand said, but reversing trends won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Europeans have a serious problem of readiness \u2026 that they\u2019re trying to fix, but it takes time,\u201d he added. \u201cIf Trump decides, \u2018I\u2019m going to pull out U.S. troops from Germany because I\u2019m upset with the trade imbalance,\u2019 that\u2019s much more complicated to manage than to say we have a plan to do this within X years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A plan in the first Trump administration that weighed relocating thousands of troops<\/a> from Germany didn\u2019t come to fruition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Poland, host to about 10,000 American troops, Hegseth said last month that the administration recognizes its footprint in Europe is \u201cimportant to deter\u201d Russia, but warned not to assume \u201cthat America\u2019s presence will last forever.\u201d He said what happens in the coming years would be \u201cpart of a larger discussion\u201d in Washington and with allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timeline of that discussion remains elusive for Europe. Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British diplomat and senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said it is unclear \u201chow much, how far, in practice,\u201d the United States could disengage from Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just worry that, given, frankly, President Trump\u2019s mercurial nature,\u201d he said, \u201chow much confidence really can Europe have in any degree of American protection and defense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRUSSELS \u2014 The Trump administration\u2019s widening split with European allies and suggestions of dialing back U.S. troop numbers have fueled European nervousness about how much the continent can still rely on the 80-year-old bargain with the United States that has underpinned its security since World War II. European leaders are in the uncomfortable position of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":9982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2527,1724,3150],"class_list":["post-9981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-european","tag-trump","tag-uncertainty"],"yoast_head":"\nUncertainty over Trump\u2019s plans for U.S. troops in Europe fuels anxiety - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=9981\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Uncertainty over Trump\u2019s plans for U.S. troops in Europe fuels anxiety - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BRUSSELS \u2014 The Trump administration\u2019s widening split with European allies and suggestions of dialing back U.S. troop numbers have fueled European nervousness about how much the continent can still rely on the 80-year-old bargain with the United States that has underpinned its security since World War II. 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