PRESIDENT TRUMP, ONCE AGAIN PIQUED at an ally, has ordered 5,000 American troops withdrawn from Germany. Defense Department officials were not shy about linking the move to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s criticism of what passes for American strategy for ending the war with Iran.
Further drawdowns from Germany and elsewhere in Europe may be coming. Angered at recent criticism by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of the most MAGA-adjacent European national leaders, and chagrinned by Madrid’s decision not to engage in the war about which NATO was never consulted, Trump also has threatened to close U.S. bases in Italy and Spain. Someone needs to advise President Trump that our forces stationed on allied soil are in fact critical U.S. military enablers, not trading cards or transactional toys, with host nations to be rewarded for good behavior or threatened with base closure as punishment. In medical parlance, such moves would be best described as “self-harm”; in the geo-political world, they would be characterized as “diplomatic malpractice.”
