Germany troop pullout: Pompeo eyes east Europe

Washington, Aug. 9: As President Donald Trump orders US troops out of Germany and faces a tough re-election battle, his top diplomat, Mike Pompeo, is heading to friendly climes in Central and Eastern Europe.

Pompeo on Tuesday opens a five-day trip that will terminate in close ally Poland, which is eager to welcome some of the US troops leaving Germany to guard against historic adversary Russia. He will also travel to the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Austria where he is expected to press his campaign for nations to shun Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant considered a threat by Washington as it takes a lead in fifth-generation internet.

In Slovenia, where he will be the first US secretary of state to visit since 2001, Pompeo will on Thursday sign an agreement on 5G, officials said without previewing details. Pompeo’s trip comes weeks after the Pentagon said the United States would bring home some 6,400 military personnel from Germany and shift nearly 5,600 more to other NATO allies, including Italy and Belgium. Trump has a tense relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who declined his invitation for a Group of Seven summit in Washington in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, and accuses Europe’s largest economy of unfair trading practices.

“What is most significant about this trip is the places the secretary is not going to,” said Ian Lesser, the Brussels-based vice president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

‘If the secretary was going to address the core issues in transatlantic relations at the moment, he would be making stops in Brussels, Paris and Berlin.” Lesser said that the troop repositioning out of Germany was unlikely to be a major issue for US voters. “What does have some political resonance is how a senior American official is received when he or she goes to Europe,” he said.