President Donald Trump’s recent announcement that the United States will pull more than 5,000 troops out of Germany prompted a critique from Republicans who lead the powerful House and Senate Armed Services Committees. 

“Any significant change to the U.S. force posture in Europe warrants a deliberate review process and close coordination with Congress and our allies,” wrote Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Sen. Roger Wicker R-Miss., committee chairmen. The reduction would cut into about 40,000 troops stationed in Germany.

Rep. Jeff Crank, a Republican who represents the 5th Congressional District that includes Colorado Springs, also said in a statement he expected to participate in the oversight as a member of the House Armed Services Committee. 

“I look forward to continuing these efforts to ensure the United States is effectively deterring Chinese and Russian aggression and supporting training and information sharing with our partners,” he said. 

Trump said he would withdraw troops after German leader Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. was being humiliated by Iranian leadership, the Associated Press reported. The decision followed a review of American troops in Europe and conditions on the ground, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said last week. 

Merz later denied that the decision was prompted by his remark, but has repeatedly warned that the era of relying on the U.S. for European defense is ending, according to Reuters.

While Trump has been critical of NATO countries for not spending enough on their own defenses, Germany committed to increasing the spending on its military to 3.5% of its economic output by 2029, it announced last year. 

But those investments will take time to materialize into military capability, Rogers and Wicker said, in their joint statement.  

“Prematurely reducing America’s forward presence in Europe before those capabilities are fully realized risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin (president of Russia),” the statement said. 

While a critique from prominent Republicans is perhaps more notable, Democrats also pushed back on the withdrawal. 

“Our troop footprint in Europe isn’t charity — it helps protect our national security, our economy, and American citizens living abroad,” said Rep. Jason Crow, D-Aurora. 

The U.S. has maintained a significant number of troops in Germany since the end of World War II. The investment in large bases, such as Ramstein Air Base, has allowed the U.S. to project military force across Europe, Asia and Africa, said Chip Frazer, a former Army intelligence and information operations officer who spent nine years in Germany. He now lives in Colorado Springs. 

“There’s no doubt that the European partners can and should do more collectively, but targeting Germany when they are already increasing their defense spending is simply retribution,” said Frazer, who holds a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University. 

If the Trump administration follows through with the drawdown of about 5,000 troops in Germany it would coincide with Russian war in Ukraine grinding through its fifth year and the highest threat level in Europe since the Cold War, he said. 

It would be more prudent to reposition forces east to Poland to deter Russia, since the U.S. has invested so much in training with European allies, Frazer said. It’s a sentiment Rogers and Wicker also raised in their statement. Fort Carson soldiers helped train NATO allies in eastern Europe during 2023.  

The United States’ changing relationship with Germany follows decades of close partnership that started at the end of World War II, when the Americans and British flew in supplies to West Berlin for more than a year and supported them through the Soviet blockade of the city, said University of Colorado Professor David Ciarlo, an expert in modern Germany. 

The Berlin Airlift was “a propaganda victory, but also a strategic victory, in terms of showing the Soviets that the U.S. can supply a city by air,” he said. 

In the decades following the war, U.S. forces stayed in Germany to deter the Soviet Union.

The strong relationship between the U.S. and Germany lasted from the airlift to the first Trump administration with some bumps along the way, Ciarlo explained. But the belief in the U.S. as an unshakable ally is ending, he said. 

The Green Party, one of three main political parties in Germany that used to be against military investment has changed its position and is now saying: “We can’t rely on the United States anymore, and we need to stop Russia  from basically picking off the European nations one by one,” he said.