SEDONA, Ariz. — A handful of senior Republicans and Democrats are blasting the Trump administration’s sudden decision to withdraw 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany.
“It’s just not smart. It’s a knee-jerk reaction,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee Saturday at the Sedona Forum. “It continues to weaken NATO, and it undermines the trust that the European countries have towards our leadership.”
Bacon’s views were shared by the Republican chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services committees — Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) — who said they were “very concerned” by the move in a joint statement released Saturday.
Wicker and Rogersinstead suggested that U.S. forces be moved to eastern Europe to maintain “a strong deterrent” to adversaries like Russia. The two top Hill Republicans expect Pentagon engagement in the “days and weeks ahead” on the decision, which came just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified before both panels.
In interviews on the sidelines of the Forum, multiple lawmakers said the move appeared linked to President Donald Trump’sire at Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who criticized the ongoing U.S. war on Iran.
Trump bashed Merz on Thursday, saying in a Truth Social post that the German leader should focus on “fixing his broken Country” and not “interfering” with Iran.
“We’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000,” Trump said Saturday in Florida.
Democrats welcomed a comprehensive analysis of U.S. troop deployments in Germany, but not in the knee-jerk way made by Trump.
“Instead of pulling them out, I would be generally in favor of really studying this and figuring out [if] maybe we should move some of them into Latvia, Lithuania, more into Poland — instead of having them in Germany,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a member of the Armed Services Committee said at the Forum.
“They have to confer with Congress on that,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said. “Yet again, they’re doing something on a whim based upon an emotional reaction of this president that’s going to put our troops and their families and Americans in a tough spot.”
Language inserted into the last NDAA (Section 1249) aimed to impede the drawdown of U.S. forces to below 76,000 in Europe for more than 45 days without clear presidential certifications to Congress.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) noted the NDAA language meant Trump “could not pull out troops from Germany and even from Europe without these certain steps, which we’re going to invoke.”
Gallego linked the move to Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, who he said has an “obsession with trying to get us out of Europe” to focus resources on the Indo-Pacific.
“These passive-aggressive actions are, number one, illegal, since we’re the ones who allocate the money,” Gallego said. “But number two, aren’t very smart.”
