Germany’s coordinator for transatlantic ties has criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw thousands of troops from Germany. Trump has ordered the U.S. military to remove 9,500 troops from Germany, a senior U.S. official said on Friday, Reuters reports.
“This is completely unacceptable, especially since nobody in Washington thought about informing its NATO ally Germany in advance,” Peter Beyer, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
Following Trump’s decision, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a newspaper interview that he regretted the planned withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Germany, describing Berlin’s relationship with the United States as “complicated”.
A U.S. senior official told the Wall Street Journal that internal discussions have been continuing since September and the move is not in retaliation to Merkel’s decision not to attend the G-7 meeting in Washington, Fox News reports.
Johann Wadephul, the deputy chairman of the Union’s parliamentary caucus, said the U.S. decision to withdraw troops without consulting with its NATO allies “shows once again that the Trump administration is neglecting basic leadership tasks.”
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