U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced today that the Biden administration has confirmed the cancellation of the former President Trump’s plan to significantly withdraw troops from Germany during his presidency, and that an additional 500 troops will be stationed in the future.
AFP reports that Austin began his European allies visit today, his first visit to Europe in office, with Germany as his first stop. He met today with German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and made the official announcement at a post-meeting press conference.
Austin said, “Today, I am pleased to announce that we will be increasing our military presence in Germany. I have told the minister about our plans to increase our continuous presence in the Wiesbaden area by about 500 troops this fall.”
Wiesbaden is located in the central German state of Hessen, close to Frankfurt.
The history of the U.S. military presence in Germany dates back to the end of World War II, but since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of U.S. troops in Germany has been declining, from 200,000 around the 1990s to 34,500 today. Trump announced during his presidency that some 12,000 U.S. troops in Germany would be redeployed to other countries, which shocked the public at the time.
But the U.S. has apparently revised this plan since the Biden administration took office, and Austin declared in a clear tone at a press conference that “Germany will remain an important security and economic partner country for the United States in the future.”
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