Don’t Pull Out of Germany

National Review Online

Tuesday, May 05, 2026

 

When it comes to his handling of European NATO, Donald Trump has made few friends, but he has proved adept at influencing people. For years, American presidents grumbled about the failure of our transatlantic partners to make any credible effort to reach the alliance’s spending targets, but to insultingly little effect. Trump’s bullying, Trump’s personality, and Russian aggression have made a real difference. In 2016, Barack Obama’s last full year in office and two years after Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s European members spent a miserable 1.47 percent of their collective GDP (some individual states spent more) on defense, far below NATO targets.

 

In 2020, the last full year of Trump’s first term, that total had increased to 1.7 percent, a start. Last year, the total had grown to nearly 2.3 percent, and it is set to keep rising, with four of the front-line states (which admittedly didn’t need any persuading) well ahead of the pack. Poland spent about 4.5 percent, and the Baltic states 3–4 percent. All four are targeting 5 percent or higher by next year. Trump’s strategy has yielded results, but it comes with risks. Every suggestion that the U.S. might not do what was required under the collective-defense provisions contained in Article 5 of the NATO treaty chips away at the strength of its deterrence. For a deterrent to deter, a possible aggressor must believe that it is not worth trying its luck. Would the U.S. ever have risked Boston to save Cold War West Berlin? Mercifully, we never had to find out. The threat of U.S. retaliation was so convincing that the Kremlin never rolled the dice.

 

With this in mind, for the president to announce that the U.S. would pull 5,000 U.S. troops out of Germany (with more to come) was unwise, especially as the motive for doing so was not to achieve some concrete aim — Germany is finally making significant increases to its defense spending — but to punish Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz for some tactless comments about the war with Iran. Merz, traditionally an Atlanticist, may have felt he had good reason to think that the U.S. had no strategy to deal with Iran and that it was being humiliated by Tehran, but, given the nature of this president, to say so to a group of high-school students was, putting it mildly, stupid.

 

But Merz’s stupidity is no excuse for a stupid response. Even if Trump doesn’t deliver on his threat, he has now chipped the credibility of the American deterrent just a little bit more. The best course now would be for him to move on. If he feels that he really must pull out some troops, they should be redeployed not back home but to Poland, a model ally, a move that might actually boost the credibility of the U.S. deterrent: lemonade out of lemons and all that.

 

Trump should also remember that the U.S. bases in Germany are a useful resource in the event of trouble in the Middle East, such as, well, now. Unlike some U.S. allies, Germany has allowed the U.S. to use its bases in the country to play some role in the attacks on Iran. Trump should also remain focused on the fact that, with the Gulf in turmoil, plenty of recent or potential U.S. allies in that region will be watching very carefully to see just how reliable a friend America can be.

 

And, of course, it is not just the Middle East that is in flux at the moment. Trump’s aim, now shared with our European allies, is that Europeans should assume much more of the burden for its own defense. That is a worthwhile objective, but not one that will be reached overnight. For it to succeed without tempting the Kremlin into adventurism that, in the end, would inevitably involve us all, two things must happen. The first is that the credibility of the U.S. deterrent must be restored to its former fearsomeness.

 

That will take time, but so will the other half of this exercise: ensuring that Europe is not left half-defended as it rearms. If the U.S. presence in Europe is to be reduced, it must not be done so prematurely. To that end, the White House should be clear that the planned deployment in Germany of greater American long-range missile capability, which is also surrounded by some confusion, should go ahead.

 

Merz, an embattled figure at home, might find it difficult to apologize to Trump, an unpopular figure in Germany, but the more he can do to lend his support to the effort to take on Iran, the better. And he should do so quickly.