US troops to be moved out from Germany?
Spend more on defense or we move troops to Poland, U.S. envoy tells Germany
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BERLIN (Reuters) - An envoy of U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that Chancellor Angela Merkel's unwillingness to boost defense spending might give the United States no choice but to move American troops stationed in Germany to Poland.
The comments by Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, signal Trump's impatience with Merkel's failure to raise defense spending to 2% of economic output as mandated by the NATO military alliance.
"It is offensive to assume that the U.S. taxpayers continue to pay for more than 50,000 Americans in Germany but the Germans get to spend their (budget) surplus on domestic programs," Grenell told the dpa news agency.
Germany's fiscal plans foresee the defense budget of NATO's second-largest member rising to 1.37% of output next year before falling to 1.24% in 2023.
Eastern European countries like Poland and Latvia, fearful of Russia after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, have raised their military spending to the 2% target, drawing praise from Trump who wants Germany to do the same.
U.S. complaints about Germany's defense spending pre-date Trump but relations with the United States have deteriorated since he became president.
The two allies do not see eye-to-eye on a range of issues, including Iran, trade tariffs and the NordStream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
Trump said in June he would deploy 1,000 U.S. troops from Germany to Poland, which sees the measure as deterrence against possible aggression from Russia.
Georgette Mosbacher, U.S. ambassador to Poland, has made a similar criticism of Germany's reluctance to commit more financial resources to NATO.
"Poland meets its 2% of GDP spending obligation toward NATO. Germany does not. We would welcome American troops in Germany to come to Poland," she wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
The United States has more than 33,000 soldiers in Germany and an additional 17,000 U.S. civilian employees to support them. It is believed the United States also has nuclear warheads in Germany.
"President Trump is right and Georgette Mosbacher is right," Grenell told dpa. "Multiple presidents have asked Europe's largest economy to pay for its own defense. This request has been made over many years and by many presidents."
https://news.yahoo.com/spend-more-de...171139987.html
there certainly was, Italy too.
I worked for AMSF, contracted by ITT which ran the U.S. comms. out of Mannheim. Great job adjusting microwave dishes and changing emergency light bulbs on the the tops of very high towers.
We got into some very weird places and had a birds eye view of all kinds of nasties being shunted around. My mate, ex RAF said categorically that were were nukes being shifted at a couple of sites, he'd worked on them in the RAF.
The spookiest job was fixing the the dishes on a microwave tower in Switzerland. Hired a 4x4, no military tools allowed and, as TCNs we just drove up to the site and did the job. Yes, a US comms site in neutral Switzerland. Bloody well hidden though.
Live ammo every where including a job in Livorno Italy. We checked in through the 3 perimeters in this case, got the keys to the dishes and started climbing but no one warned the perimeter guards. Next thing there's a resounding crack. Straight on the radio and we were kindly suggested to stay still, very very still and preferably behind something substantial whilst things were explained.
Underwear was changed upon descent.
Happy days.
