London: When dealing with Donald Trump, speaking your mind can come at a cost. So German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is being blasted by the US president after revealing his thoughts about the war with Iran.
Merz, a conservative who usually avoids clashing with Trump, declared on Monday that America was being “humiliated” by Iran and had no clear way out of the conflict.
Trump, clearly furious on social media, threatened retaliation. But rather than resorting to tariffs, his preferred tool in the past, he raised the idea of withdrawing US troops from German bases they have used for decades.
Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of war, followed up within a day. He moved on Friday afternoon in Washington (early on Saturday, AEST) to remove an army brigade from Germany, or about 5000 troops, over the next year. He is also reported to be halting a plan from the Biden administration to deploy a battalion to Germany with long-range conventional missiles.
Suddenly, a foundation stone of the Western alliance is in doubt. No country in Europe has more American troops than Germany. With 49,000 military and civilian personnel, the country has more American defence service members on active duty than many US states.
The Pentagon changes appear to have been in the works for months, so they are not happening simply because the German chancellor spoke up. Trump has complained about troop numbers in Germany for years, including in his first term as president, and now sees a chance to do something.
Even so, the timing suggests that the frank talk in Germany made Trump more eager to act. And the defence decision came when the president slapped higher tariffs on European cars, also hurting Germany.
Merz angered Trump because he lanced the presidential hyperbole about the war.
“The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected, and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,” the chancellor said to students at an event in Marburg.
“The problem with conflicts like this is always: you don’t just have to get in, you have to get out again. We saw that very painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq.
“At the moment, I do not see what strategic exit the Americans will choose, especially since the Iranians are clearly negotiating very skilfully – or very skilfully not negotiating.”
His conclusion: “A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.”
European leaders know to expect retaliation from the White House. Trump has already warned that he could withdraw the US from the NATO alliance, though he would have to gain approval from Congress for this drastic step. In practical terms, his disputes with NATO already weaken the pact.
Germany’s own actions show that it is preparing for a time when it has less support from across the Atlantic. And it is not alone. French President Emmanuel Macron has talked to Merz about a joint European nuclear deterrent to fill the American security gap. France has the fourth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
Merz is already spending heavily on defence in the knowledge that Germany will have to do more without American help. Germany was the largest military spender among European NATO members last year, lifting its outlays by 24 per cent to $US114 billion (about $160 billion). A new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute notes that this is only 2.3 per cent of GDP, but the German economy is the third largest in the world when measured in US dollars.
“In 2025, military spending by European NATO members rose faster than at any time since 1953,” said Jade Guiberteau Ricard, a researcher at the institute.
The next German budget is expected to lift defence spending to about 3.7 per cent of GDP by 2030, even though this means taking on debt. (This is the strategic background to Australia’s growing defence relationship with Germany.)
Merz wants Germany to have the biggest army in Europe, though he confronts popular concern. A new law has cleared the way for conscription if the country cannot add 20,000 personnel with volunteers alone. Some of the younger generation think Merz and his government are asking too much.
The spending increases will continue across Europe, and not just because Trump complains that the spending has been too low. European leaders are adjusting to a world in which America is less reliable. Trump’s waning interest in Ukraine has been the obvious signal of this. The troop withdrawal from Germany amplifies it.
The Hegseth announcement needs to be put into perspective. The US has withdrawn troops from Germany in the past. The 49,000 personnel in Germany at the end of December was slightly higher than the 47,000 at the end of 2015, according to public data from the Defence Manpower Data Centre, or DMDC. But it was down from 58,000 in 2010.
How did that happen? Barack Obama, the US president seen as a staunch friend of Europe, withdrew two combat brigades from Germany in 2012, amounting to about 7000 troops. The NATO pact survived this shift in force posture because the numbers are not the greatest challenge here. The biggest problem is that Trump does not believe in NATO, the alliance that won the Cold War.
Other European leaders know they could be in for the same treatment. Trump has widened his complaints in the past few days to suggest that he could order US troops out of Italy and Spain, given he thinks they have not helped in the war with Iran.
“Yeah, I probably will,” he said when asked about this in the Oval Office. “Italy has not been of any help, and Spain has been horrible.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez opposes the war and refuses to allow US aircraft to use Spanish bases to launch attacks on Iran. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stopped US forces using an air base in Sicily in March.
Even so, Italy and Spain support thousands of US personnel at army, navy and air force bases. And the US forces are not there to defend Italy and Spain; their primary purpose is to defend America.
The DMDC reports show there were more than 15,000 active US defence personnel – military and civilian – in Italy in December, and about 4300 in Spain. There were just over 11,500 in Britain. (For all of Trump’s interest in Greenland, there were only 137 on the Arctic territory.)
All this military muscle is there to ensure Trump, or another president, can project American power at great distance from the White House.
And that means that withdrawing too many of these assets will weaken US capacity.
None of this means Europe can defend itself easily without America. The big winner from a substantial American withdrawal would be Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I think Putin will love it,” said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in January, when a European Parliament committee asked him about this scenario.
Rutte warned that Europe would suffer an immense burden if it had to fill the gap left by a US retreat.
“And if anyone thinks here, again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming,” he told the parliamentarians. “You can’t. We can’t. We need each other.”
Rutte, one of the closest friends Trump has in Europe, is always more optimistic about the alliance than others. But he was also being coolly rational. For the Americans to remain safe, he said, they need a secure Arctic, a secure North Atlantic and a secure Europe.
“So, the US has every interest in NATO, as much as Canada and the European NATO allies,” he said.
Trump can withdraw a brigade from Germany, as Obama did. But he would have to think twice about a sweeping withdrawal of ships, aircraft and troops from Europe. In the meantime, he won’t think twice about making the threat.
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David Crowe is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.