Lawmakers torch Trump plan to pull 11,900 troops from Germany
Source: The Hill
Lawmakers in both parties are panning the Trump administration’s plan to pull nearly 12,000 U.S. troops out of Germany. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) blasted the move as a “grave error,” while Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said President Trump shows a “lack of strategic understanding.”
“Once more, now with feeling: U.S. troops aren’t stationed around the world as traffic cops or welfare caseworkers – they’re restraining the expansionary aims of the world’s worst regimes, chiefly China and Russia,” Sasse said in a statement. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin “are reckless – and this withdrawal will only embolden them,” Sasse added. “We should be leading our allies against China and Russia, not abandoning them. Withdrawal is weak."
Defense Secretary Mark Esper filled in details of a (troop withdrawal) plan he argued would help the United States deter Russia. Esper cast the move as a strategic realignment of forces that had been in the works for months. Moments after Esper argued the drawdown is about strategy, Trump reiterated that he is doing it just to penalize Berlin. "We’re reducing the force because they’re not paying their bills,” Trump told reporters while departing the White House. “It’s very simple. They’re delinquent.”
Democrats quickly pounced. Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said that “champagne must be flowing freely this evening at the Kremlin” and called on Republicans to “stand up to the president and put an end to this abdication of his oath to protect the United States from enemies foreign and domestic."
Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/509682-lawmakers-torch-trump-plan-to-pull-11900-troops-from-germany
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), meanwhile, said he is “very concerned” about “an arbitrary cap” on the number of U.S. troops stationed in Germany.
“By the secretary’s own admission, this plan was not drafted in consultation with U.S. allies or with the military services, but instead all parties – including Congress – were notified after decisions had already been made,” Smith said in a statement. “Not only does the plan fail to consider major logistical issues, questions about deterrence and implementation of the National Defense Strategy, and concerns about implications for U.S. efforts in Africa and elsewhere, but also it will almost certainly result in significant costs to the department.”
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