Trump’s troop cut blindsided senior U.S. officials

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s decision to cut U.S. troop levels in Germany blindsided a number of senior national security officials, according to five sources familiar with the matter, and the Pentagon had yet to receive a formal order to carry it out, Reuters has learned.

Trump decided to remove 9,500 troops from Germany, one of America’s strongest allies, reducing the number there to 25,000 from 34,500, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

That official said it was the result of months of work by the U.S. military leadership and had nothing to do with tensions between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who thwarted his plan to host an in-person Group of Seven (G7) summit this month.

But other sources familiar with the matter said a number of U.S. officials at the White House, State Department and Pentagon were surprised by the decision and they offered explanations ranging from Trump’s pique over the G7 to the influence of Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany and a Trump loyalist.

Reuters could not determine if Grenell had played a direct role with Trump in the decision-making. Grenell resigned his post on June 1, according to a State Department spokeswoman.

The Defense and State Departments referred questions to the White House National Security Council, which declined comment.

Asked for comment, Grenell said that “this is all gossip” and declined to address specific questions about the decision and his role in it. The reduction, he said, had been “in the works since last year.”

He underscored U.S. frustration over Germany’s failure to meet a NATO target of defense spending of 2% of GDP. He noted that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg named Germany as the only country that had not submitted a credible plan for how to reach their commitment.

At an online event hosted by the Atlantic Council thinktank on Monday, Stoltenberg declined to comment on what he termed “media leakages and media speculation” when asked about U.S. plans to cut troop numbers in Germany. He said NATO was “constantly consulting with the United States, with other NATO allies on the military posture, presence in Europe.”