Donald Trump Considering Removal Of US Troops From Germany To Poland.

Warshaw; May 2026: US President Donald Trump has not ruled out that some of the US troops stationed in Germany could be moved to Poland. “Poland would like it. We have excellent relations with Poland. I have excellent relations with the President of Poland Karol Nawrocki. I support them. I like him (Nawrocki) very much. So, it’s possible”, Trump said, answering questions from reporters yesterday (May 08th). Meanwhile, Polish President Karol Nawrocki said that Warsaw is ready to accept part of the US troops stationed in Germany.

The fact that Poland is ready to host part of the US troops withdrawn from Germany, Karol Nawrocki said during a visit to Lithuania in early May. “We have the necessary infrastructure for this”, he stressed at the time.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda also announced his readiness to deploy additional American troops in his country. Now more than 1000 American troops are stationed there. There are about 10 thousand of them in Poland.

US troops have been constantly in Germany since the end of World War II. During the Cold War, hundreds of thousands of American troops were stationed on the territory of Germany. In the 1990s, their numbers were drastically reduced, but Germany remained the most important centre for the American army in Europe. About half of the US troops on the continent are stationed here. The most important is the Ramstein Air Base in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate in the southwest of Germany. From there, the United States, among other things, manages its troops in the Middle East and Africa. Experts believe that the cuts will not affect this base.

For Germany’s defence potential, Trump’s decision does not seem to be critical, since Berlin has taken a course to strengthen the Bundeswehr and has already recruited about 5 thousand additional contract soldiers.

Experts call another decision of the Pentagon much more dangerous for Germany, for not deploying ground-based Tomahawk medium-range missiles and modern hypersonic missiles. An agreement on this was reached in 2024 between Joe Biden and Olaf Scholz, who was then German Chancellor. The deployment was conceived as a deterrent signal towards Russia against the backdrop of its war against Ukraine and a temporary solution, until Europe has its own such missiles. The decision caused a wave of criticism from left-wing political forces, which tried to conduct an election campaign under the slogans: “No to American missiles in Germany!”. It was planned that a US air defence battalion with long-range missiles would appear in Germany in 2026.

It seems that now the situation has changed. It was on 03rd May 2026, German Chancellor Merz spoke publicly about this almost for the first time, making it clear that the United States would not deploy Tomahawk missiles in Germany for the time being. He explained this by the fact that they are needed by the US Armed Forces themselves. It seems that this will also affect Typhon mobile launchers for Tomahawks and SM-6 missiles, the range of which is about 370 km. In 2025, the Merz government requested permission from the Trump administration to purchase launch systems, but did not receive a response. At the same time, Merz tried to reassure citizens, noting that American air-launched nuclear weapons remain in Germany.

In terms of conventional weapons, Germany will have nothing to close the gap in its defence system in the coming years. So far, the most long-range weapon of the Bundeswehr is the German-Swedish Taurus cruise missiles, their range is about 500 kilometers. Some politicians from the ruling conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party are now calling for increased defence cooperation with Ukraine and joint development of intermediate-range weapons.

Currently, 36,436 active duty US service members are stationed in Germany. The country remains one of the main logistics and command hubs for US forces in Europe.

Poland, on the other hand, has been actively increasing its defence budget and purchasing American weapons in recent years. Warsaw has also repeatedly called for an expansion of the permanent US military presence on its territory. As a reminder, in early May 2026, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced that the United States plans to withdraw approximately 5,000 troops from Germany.

The withdrawal is expected to be completed within 6–12 months. It will involve, in particular, a US Army combat brigade, as well as a Long-Range Fires Battalion, which was previously planned to be deployed in Europe.

The Pentagon stated that the troop reduction is linked to a review of US force deployment in Europe and a broader strategy that involves reallocating resources to other regions, particularly the Indo-Pacific.

According to the US European Command, since 2022, the number of US forces in Europe has ranged from 75,000 to 105,000 personnel. Of these, approximately 63,000 were stationed there on a permanent basis, while the remainder rotated in and out.

Team Maverick.