Trump says U.S. will probably move troops from Germany to Poland

U.S. President Donald Trump said he will pull out some 9,000 American soldiers from Germany and deploy a part of the forces to Poland, which is willing to pay for the troops. The American president pressured his allies including South Korea to dramatically raise the amount of defense costs for U.S. troops stationed abroad, threatening to curtail the forces if conditions are not met.

In a press conference after a summit meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Wednesday (local time), President Trump said he will probably move some American troops from Germany to Poland, according to Bloomberg News. It was nine days ago that the U.S. president announced to cut the number of American troops stationed in Germany from 34,674 to 25,000.

The bone of contention was the amount of defense costs in Germany. On June 15, Trump fumed that NATO allies that are not committing more than 2% of GDP to defense spending are indebted to the U.S. Germany’s defense spending against GDP was 1.36% as of last year.

During the press conference on Wednesday, Mr. Trump praised Poland as “one of only eight NATO members that are contributing enough money to national defense,” adding “They asked if we could send additional troops, and they will pay for it too.” In September 2018, President Duda visited the White House to secure more troops from the U.S. as response to Russian threats, where he announced the advancement payment of two billion dollars for construction of military bases and expense of stationing for U.S. troops.


Na-Ri Shin journari@donga.com