Trump’s Plan to Pull U.S. Troops from Germany Irks Merkel Government and the Media
German newspaper Handelsblatt: “Trump’s planned withdrawal of U.S. troops causes distress.”
President Donald Trump’s decision to cut the number of U.S. troops in Germany has irked Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and German media.
The White House plans to withdraw 9,500 out of 35,000 U.S. troops stationed in Germany by September, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The move came after Germany ignored President Trump’s repeated warnings and kept defaulting on the agreed defense spending, leaving the U.S. to pick up the hefty NATO bill.
“The United States is spending far more on NATO than any other country. This is not fair, nor is it acceptable,” President Trump said at the 2018 NATO summit. The U.S. shoulders more than 70 percent of the NATO defense budget.
Peter Beyer, a German politician and a key Merkel ally, called the planned U.S. troop withdrawal “completely unacceptable” to Germany. “It’s not just about 9,500 soldiers, but also their families, an estimated 20,000 Americans,” he added.
Nils Schmid, a spokesman for Germany’s ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), Merkel’s coalition partner, decried the move calling U.S. president “a hopeless case.” Merkel’s Christian Conservative party (CDU) also slammed the decision.
“Trump’s planned withdrawal of U.S. troops causes distress,” German business daily Handelsblatt reported. German weekly Der Spiegel ran an editorial critical of the U.S. president titled “The Alliance Breaker in the White House.”
The news agency Reuters reported the official German response:
Germany’s coordinator for transatlantic ties has criticised U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw thousands of troops from Germany. (…)
“This is completely unacceptable, especially since nobody in Washington thought about informing its NATO ally Germany in advance,” Peter Beyer, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
Following Trump’s decision, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a newspaper interview that he regretted the planned withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Germany, describing Berlin’s relationship with the United States as “complicated”.
Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper also covered the domestic political reaction:
The CDU and CSU parties [the Merkel-led ‘Christian Conservative’ alliance] criticized Trump’s idea. Johann Wadephul, the deputy chairman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary caucus spoke of a “further wake-up call for the Europeans” to take their destiny more decisively into their hands. (…)
Trump is “a hopeless case,” said Nils Schmid, the foreign affairs spokesperson of Social Democratic Party [Merkel’s coalition partner]. “A cooperative partnership is apparently impossible and not desired by him.” The plan will be in its execution “regrettable and above all hurt the military capabilities of the United States.” The security of Germany and the European NATO partners will also be impacted. [Translated by the author]
The U.S. mainstream media also chimed in.
“Trump chooses a senseless withdrawal from Germany. He threatens national security,” The Washington Post lamented.
The New York Times quoted unnamed “analysts,” saying the “move had a whiff of politics and even personal resentment.” The NYT explained that “Mr. Trump and his allies have long singled out Germany as what they call an egregious free rider on America’s military might. Instead of spending to defend itself and Europe, Mr. Trump has argued, Germany instead built itself a lavish social welfare system.”
Germany, under Merkel’s 14-year rule, has shown little inclination to fulfill its NATO spending pledge.
“It is true that Germany will not meet the NATO threshold, agreed in 2014, of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense by 2024,” German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle admitted following the U.S. announcement.
The out-going U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, had repeatedly reminded Berlin to meets its defense spending obligation.
“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 surplus on domestic programs,” he told German media in August.
The planned withdrawal will impact German communities around the U.S. bases, Deutsche Welle reported. The move “could have big economic consequences for the small towns where they have been based for nearly 70 years,” the public broadcaster noted. “Small towns in the south of Germany such as Grafenwöhr in Bavaria or Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate have developed since World War II on the basis of the presence of thousands of US troops, their families and US civilians working at bases there.”
Poland was first to welcome the move. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that he “deeply” hoped that some of the troops moving out of Germany would be transferred to his country, the German media reported on Monday.
(Cover image via YouTube; Excerpts from the German media translated by the author)
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I thought Urkel was overjoyed at her friend, the Russians. Now she’s thinking they might be a threat? Let’s see that NATO funding and we’ll see what happens.
Germany is the master race. They have proved their prowess in fighting wars, and conquering the world. They did it twice in the last century alone. Didn’t they?
The last time they tried teaming up with Russia, it didn’t work out so well for them. Fortunately for us and the rest of the world, they beat each other up pretty good.
We’ve been paying the bill for most of those European countries for decades. Time for them to keep peace (and pay the bill) in their own back yard.
Trump could score a trifecta by placing US mechanized troops along the Polish-Lithuanian-Kaliningrad border.
During the past several years Putin has been staging agressive war games in the Baltic Sea and off the coast of Kaliningrad. Russian navy have repeatedly harassed Swedish and Lithuanian flagged commercial shipping.
Lithuania recently completed construction of a shiny new high tech LNG shipping port – thereby busting the Russian energy monopoly over their former baltic vassals.
Yep- move them to an actual ally- Poland.
Actually, the US and Britain might have lost WWII if Hitler hadn’t lost so many soldiers and so much materiel in his ill-advised invasion of Russia. Hitler lost over 2 million soldiers on the eastern front and less than 1 million on the western front.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II
Germany also probably would have had the atomic bomb in WWII if Hitler hadn’t run off all his Jewish scientists. They went to the US and Britain, and worked on the A-bomb for the allies.
I think Trump is just using one of the techniques he mentions in his book on negotiating. If the Germans don’t want to shoulder their share of the cost of NATO, we’re going to reduce our costs. It’s ganz klar to the Germans what they need to do to change that decision.
“If the Germans don’t want to shoulder their share of the cost of NATO, we’re going to reduce our costs.”
Oh, yes. The right play. Angie must be beside herself.
The last time they won anything was in 9 AD in the Teutoburg Forest when they destroyed three understrength Legions, whose senior officers were on leave, and who were actually on what was supposed to be a goodwill tour. It took treachery to accomplish that victory.
The Romans got their reveng in 16 AD at the battle of Idistavisus, where they routed the Germans. Arminius, the German leader who was the principal in the Teutoburg treachery was killed by his own people in 19 AD.
If I recall my history lessons correctly, they have a pretty good track record against the French. Against everyone else, not so good.
They gave the feckless Brits a good butt whooping. Churchill for all his zeal was behind the 8 ball thanks to a near decade of appeasement.
Let Merkel send her refugees to die against Putin.
correction… her rape-fugees.
“Having a pretty good track record against the French” is a lot like having a pretty good track record against the Jamaican bobsled team.
Merkel can DEFUND the German military and the German police cause all those ME invaders can protect them from Russian
H-bombs.
It’s really something when thesbian Merkel, makes lesbian Lori Lightfoot look somewhat smart.
Snark.
GOOD.
Merkel can go cry to her Kenyan Dictator Sucka.
I just wish the number of troops being removed from Germany was 35,000 instead of a measly 9,000.
Gotta start somewhere.
It is clear that all they care about is the money the troops spend on beer, dependent housing, and many on base jobs for locals. Their weak economy is going to take a hit but not a knock out blow.
Drive a further stake into Germany’s heart: revise the tax deductibility of vehicle leases. A lot of soccer moms would lose their Mercedes and BMW SUVs they use to take Megan to ballet, and Brandon to, well, soccer.
I second and endorse that.
Why would a vehicle lease be tax deductible but a car payment is not?
Only the interest portion of a car payment is deductible, just like a mortgage. This is so because you didn’t pay income tax on the debt you incurred to buy the car (all income is taxable unless the tax code says otherwise), so it isn’t deductible when you pay back the loan principal. This surprises a lot of people, but actually is very sensible.
A lease is a rental arrangement, and rent is deductible in its entirety if the lease isn’t a disguised sale.
Slow down, some of those are manufactured in SC and Alabama. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
See rabidfox’s comment. Why is a lease deductible and not a payment?
As I recall, a lease is completely deductible, a purchase must be depreciated over time.
I buy my cars, have been away from tax law for decades,so may be wrong. However, I’m pretty sure that vehicle leases are only deductible and purchases are only depreciable if the vehicle is used for business. Last I know, being a soccer mom isn’t a business. I’m now done doing set-ups.
Purchase of a car is depreciation over time. Lease of a car is an expense. For business.
Throw the damn baby out. It can be replaced by something non german.
With all due respect, I usually drive foreign cars. And right now, with the CAFE requirements, all cars look the damn same, unless they’re unusually expensive.
Honestly, get rid of the gas mileage requirements so I can drive something I actually like looking at.
MAGA – Make Autos Giant Again
Barry,
‘Throw the Damn baby out it can be replaced by something non German’.
Are you attempting to dictate what choices consumers should make? Does that argument also extend to firearms? Joe Biden says all we need is a double barrel shotgun. Your statement which seems to indicate that you agree with someone telling the rest of us what products we need or can/should be replaced with your preferred alternative.
FYI Mercedes Benz employs about 5K manufacturing jobs, BMW about 8500 manufacturing jobs, Volkswagen about 6K manufacturing jobs.
Do you own a SIG Sauer? That’s a German company, should we bar them as well, even though they manufacture in the USA?
Isn’t SIG a Swiss company?
CaptTee,
SIG is Swiss. They partnered in the mid 1970s with Sauer of Germany. New company = Sig Sauer. Added north America production in the 1990s as a separate entity. All three now owned by L&O Holdings a German company, private not publicly traded.
So Sig Sauer is German with US based manufacturing, just like Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and BMW.
Hunh? What? What deductibility?
He does not understand the tax code.
You do not understand the tax code.
Lease payments are not legally deductible for autos and other chattel used for personal purposes. In fact, the tax regs set a presumption that a vehicle leased for business purposes is used 90% for business and therefore presumptively deductible at 90% of the lease payment amount. Smart people do not deduct more than 90% because there is a requirement to log miles and prove it in the instance of an audit.
On Poland!
I know it is difficult for people of Jewish heredity because of the Concentration camps, over 3 million Jews and others murdered in Poland… you can’t do that without consent of the ”people”
Nazis depended on collaboration, much like our call in lines for the China virus…
But they are closer to American values today them most, if not all of Europe today
The Germans have fewer than 200 MBTs and half of their only 70 military jets are not operational.
Poland could march through Germany for a change.
Remember that 2-3 Million non-Jewish Poles also died in the camps.
See also: 6,992 Poles among Yad Vashem’s “Righteous Among the Nations”.
I definitely wouldn’t say that the people of Poland consented to the Holocaust.
Many did clearly not all, but you can’t round up millions without collaboration
Fear of the Germans was very real, peoples character came to the forefront
We all would like to believe we could be Mr Schindler. I think of Sophie’s Choice, and a moment of insanity because of fear…
The vast majority of Poles not only consented and collaborated, but did their own Jew-killing too. Especially in the few years immediately after the War, when Jews were starting to return to their homes and trying to reclaim their property. The Poles had looted it all on the assumption that the Zhids were dead, and they were disappointed that their assumption was premature, so they tried to make it true. The Polish partisans were also antisemites, and would kill Jews as readily as Germans, which is why the Jews who escaped into the forests had to set up their own separate partisan forces. And before the war Poland had been a terrible place for Jews; both the government and the people hated Jews, even worse than the Germans did.
But set against that 700 years in which Poland was a welcoming place for Jews. From the 13th century to the 19th, there was little serious antisemitism in Poland. The government welcomed Jews and the economic activity they brought, and (usually) protected them from any harm. All that changed on a dime around the turn of the last century, and I don’t really understand why. So it’s not unreasonable to suppose that they could have changed back some time in the last 50 years or so.
Part of the change in Polish attitudes toward Jews happened as a result of Jews being forced west and south out of the pale of settlement beginning in the early nineteenth century.
Why not pull all the troops out? It’s not up to us to support the German economy and just exactly who are we defending them against?
That great sucking sound you just heard is the German economy cratering right through the Middle East into communist China.
Russia. Anything Putin could do to destabilize Germany or the EU would delight him to no end.
“has irked Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and German media”
“You expect us now to pay for our own defense now? Okay, you guy have been here since, what, 1945 or so, knocked off the Nazis, gave us the Marshall Plan, paid billions for building road, facilities. Stood up to the Russikies, gave us armament and training. But, what have you done for us lately?”
This suffers the same problem as affirmative action. There’s no gratitude.
We protected you from the Soviet Union. For 25 years, the Soviet Union has been gone. It’s up to you to get up off your own ass.
Poor Angela. She’s irked.
“A cooperative partnership is apparently impossible and not desired by him.”
Apparently a “Cooperative Partnership” is one where the US pays all the bills, forever, and we are not allowed to ask any questions about it.
Kind of like bi-partisan bills in Congress where RINOs capitulate and give Democrats whatever they want.
I have family who are Germans, and I get sick and tired of listening to the woke, anti-American bullshit that spews forth from the lips of my nephews. They’re taught from Howard Zinn’s “history” of America as if it is the gospel, and they believe every word of it. The younger generations in German think America is the cause of all evil in the world.
In short, fuck them. Let them fend for themselves.
Well, why not? Americans are brought up with that crock of sh*t too, and they also believe it. And unlike the Germans, Americans should know better.
They were traitors in WWI, they were traitors in WWII and they will be traitors in WWIII.
Cry me a river. How about because of BRAC they look at the small towns in eastern Michigan and Upper like Wurtsmith Air Force Base and K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base. Why should we save them, when we are killing us here.
Sorry, zero sum gain with this. Poland, here we come. I am cheering this one on.
All together now, for Merkel’s and the media’s offended sensibilities: “Aw.”
Let stop backing losers and start supporting winners like Poland:
Germany’s lack of military readiness ‘dramatic,’ says Bundeswehr commissioner
The German parliament’s military commissioner has published a report sharply critical of Germany’s combat-readiness.
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-lack-of-military-readiness-dramatic-says-bundeswehr-commissioner/a-42663215
What’s wrong with the Bundeswehr?
Bartels pointed to “big gaps” in personnel and equipment. At the end of 2017, no submarines and none of the air force’s 14 large transport planes were available for deployment due to repairs.
Other equipment, including fighter jets, tanks and ships, was outdated and in some cases not fully operational because of bad planning or a lack of spare parts. Some air force pilots were unable to train because too many aircraft were being repaired.
Soldiers have experienced increasing levels of stress and there was a lack adequate leadership due to some 21,000 vacant officer posts.
The report said the government needed to pursue reforms “with greater urgency” and increase defense spending.
A lack of funding and inefficient management structures and planning were behind the problems. Germany has cut defense spending since the end of the Cold War. In 2017, it spent about 1.2 percent of its economic production in 2017 on the armed forces, which is below the 2 percent target recommended by the NATO alliance.
It’s only been 7 decades since FDR’s War in Europe
Germany should have seen this coming.
Obama shutdown the US Occupation HQ in Heidelberg.
this is what pays your own way means. Now you have a problem, Angie. How do you pay for your socialism went the US is no longer paying for your defense?
The Brits might be able to pull this off. Take London and New York City out of the mix and we might have a fighting chance.
Geez, Calling Russia, you can have Germany back:
Germany’s fighter jets may not be fit for NATO service — and it’s the latest setback in a wider problem
https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-military-lack-of-readiness-nato-operations-2018-4?op=1
Germany’s Tornado fighter jets may not be able to join NATO missions due to technological deficiencies, according to an army report seen by German magazine Spiegel at the end of March.
The confidential report, prepared by Germany’s Bundeswehr, said 93 Tornados need immediate, extensive upgrades, as “the readiness to operate with the increasing age of the weapon system is clearly risky,” according to Spiegel.
This is even better:
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201802151061685708-germany-army-lacks-tanks/
The German Bundeswehr lacks tanks to fulfill its obligations to NATO as the ninth tank brigade stationed in Münster, which according to army’s plan should be engaged in NATO’s new force, now has only nine combat-capable of the required 44 Leopard-2 tanks and three of the 14 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, newspaper Die Welt reports, citing a secret document of the country’s Defense Ministry.
Makes sense to me, we’ve been there for a long time and the German government has moved towards being more enemy like than partner. I grew up stationed in West Germany when my dad was stationed over there. Now, the Cold War is over, Germany is re-unified, and they’ve moved against US interests to partner with Russia for energy dependence…all while joining in on the double talk of saying Trump is an ally of Putin.
These allies will crap on the US military as a bunch of war criminals, but as soon as a change in the status quo is announced, just like South Korea…they’ll whine about a loss of benefits. Shoulder your own burdens and become your own independent nation.
I agree that troops should be moved around to more friendly countries, but as long as we are part of NATO and dealing with the Middle East, we probably need a “rest stop” in the area.
I suspect that this threat is to scare the Germans to do more, but if he does it, good. He should also slowly draw down the numbers to a basic level. Let them try to figure out why their tax revenues are decreasing.
Also, never give up the bases and hospital complex. We don’t need someone else to move in the area.
My, they certainly do make a lot of noise. Nevertheless, 9,500 out of 35,000 troops is hardly one of history’s great “withdrawals.”
Like NYC – who picked di blasio, twice – he hell with Germany: they picked merkel, now they have to live with the consequences.
Troops in Germany, no troops: merkel is selling out to the Russians. Move Euro troops to Poland, Hungary or the like: where there is no Islamic terrorism and US troops can move freely without being murdered from behind.
Btw, we’re going to need those US troops here in America. We’re in a civil war, in case anyone’s forgotten.
And China – who has funded a lot of it, along with the likes of soros, gates, bezos, etc. – is fanning the flames:
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/antifa-ccp-beijing-meeting/
If Germany cared about the communities close to USA bases, Germany only needs to hire more troops and send to basis the US is leaving.
Problem solved.
I can say with certainty that the so-called “Fort Trump” has begun construction in Poland. Military engineering units have been rotating in and out doing the construction. Mine was supposed to go this summer, but our rotation was cancelled due to the Wuhan Coronavirus. Let’s hope we can get back at it now that the dust is settling.
so an occupying force (that been there for 70+ years) suggests reducing its presence and germany doesn’t like the idea?
weird because just last december DW reported the results of an internal poll of german citizens. they were asked to name the world leader that was the biggest threat to peace.
by a nearly 3 to 1 margin, trump beat both kim and putin.
41% said trump, 17% said kim and 8% named putin.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/poll-germany-donald-trump-world-leaders/2019/12/27/id/947499/
Germany did to us after we won the war what the riot extortioners are doing to us: losing the battle, but winning the long term war.
Our defense dollars and troops allowed Germany a free ride. They used the money for social programs, and their solders got – literally – fat. We should have demanded they pay their NATO bill ENTIRELY.
Now, much of our society is ‘taking a knee’ to fascist extortionists, and those of us who work and create industry will be paying tribute to those who don’t.
It’s not the responsibility of the US to be responsible for the economic survival of German cities and towns. If Merkel didn’t want this, Germany should have paid its fair share of NATO dues.
I wonder how many are really taking a knee? I know there is a percent of the military that can’t be trusted, to Bradley Manning ring a bell…Fucker should have had a bullet instead of a jail cell, oh, but wait, Obama the first traitor President let him free
We know they are there , all the way through 3 or 4 star Generals
This isn’t and has never been only or even mainly about defending Germany and who should pay for it. It’s about US foreign policy and force projection around the world. As that policy evolves and as the strategic situation changes, it makes sense to re-evaluate where and how we deploy our forces.
Personally, as someone who’s never been in favor of the neoconservatives’ interventionist projects, I applaud this move if it means bringing the troops back home. But I suspect they’ll simply be re-based somewhere else where they can be useful to those projects.
I was stationed in Schweinfurt from end of 01- January 08 and then in Wiesbaden from January 08- May 2011. Though we were deployed or in the field for about 70% or more of that time and I never got to experience Oktoberfest due to that, I loved my time in Germany.
The country is clean. The people outside the larger cities are great and most of the folks in the cities aren’t anti American. Maybe that has to do with the post 9/11 sympathy. I can easily see how the younger Germans would be anti-PDJT.
Unfortunately, their political leadership has made a decision to refuse to meet it’s NATO commitments. The world and the bipartisan elite would prefer the U.S. to be tied down in protecting their interests and enforcing their policy preferences. Those days are over. The American taxpayers have chosen to elect PDJT because he promised to end our overseas commitments of the cold war era, bring our troops home and use them to promote the strategic interest of the U.S.
Perhaps the European elites, like their American counterparts are under the illusion that Trump isn’t really President and that he is like countless politicians before who don’t really intend to deliver on their campaign platforms. The refusal of some to accept the fact of Brexit would mirror and butress that theory.
In the end GER, FR would would prefer to have the U.S. military to do their dirty work. At least the Poles, CZ, Estonia, Latvia etc, who were under Soviet domination understand that they will have to be willing to fund their military and prepare for war if they wish for peace.
I’m going to put that down to an unfortunate translation. Maybe in German it sounds better. Because in English that sounds like something an entitled millennial would say.
Their millennials are also spoiled snowflake Marxist brats.
No — an entitled millennial would say it represented a “literal danger to me and people like me.”
Which, come to think of it, in his particular case would be astonishingly accurate.
Then they should have thought of that all those years when they thumbed their noses at the USA.
When I was a Michigan resident, I recall the local congresscritters continually lobbying to keep Selfridge National Guard Air base open. Often. It’s ALWAYS been on the chopping block, along with the “jobs”, “families” and “local economy”. Welcome to our life Germany & NATO.
I imagine that 2% doesn’t sound as expensive to them today as it did yesterday.
Only 25,500 more to go.
Do it now President Trump.
Withdraw every single American service member based in germany.
Parasites like Germany always assume the relationship is symbiotic until the host goes to the doctor or dies.
Funny, Germany recently pulled up stakes and left OUR Air Force Base in Alamogordo New Mexico. I don’t recall even hearing about it in any national or even in the larger media markets in Albuquerque or El Paso. It was a huge hit to the local economy in Alamogordo and the surrounding area especially the real estate market
Pull all the troops out! It’s time Germany pulled their own weight. They have been stabbing us in the back politically for years. Merkel is a disaster for us as well as Germany. I was there in the 70’s as a part of Reforger 77. The people really loved us back then, not so much now.
Move the troops, Air Force and Navy to Poland. Tell Merkel to take her woke ass to Chicago and see if Lightfoot can help her out.
Trump should troll them all and say that he is considering leaving those troops there and sending 10,000 more to Germany if Germany immediately agrees to double its defense spending.
Then the media will go crazy saying Trump is threatening our security because his actions are provocative to Russia and China. And maybe even Luxembourg and Lichenstein.
Bring them all home. To hell with germany. To hell with merkel. Let them ask the russians for help. Or maybe the chi-coms. Or why not both -LOL.
Long overdue.
I’d have brought about half home, redeployed most of the rest in Eastern Europe.
The airbases there make sense, the army bases no longer do. Haven’t for decades.
Whom are we defending Germany against? With the new pipe line all of Europe will be dependent on Russian gas, so it must not be Russia.
I’m sure Putin would be happy to fill the void. Or, given the demographic trends, maybe Erdogan?
Eric R.,
There isn’t a void to fill. The U.S. will still have 25K troops in Germany. Plus a large AF presence in GBR and an airborne brigade in Italy a naval presence in the Mediterranean among other things.
The Germans are capable of fielding a nice professional military just as GBR does. Capability isn’t the issue. Willingness to shift the money to pay for it from their domestic budget is the real issue.
“Trump’s a big meanie, who doesn’t want to cooperate!”
“Well, uh, yeah – we haven’t paid our pledged 2% into NATO since forever. Why is that a big deal? Trump is still a poopyhead!”
pay up, german deadbeats. We, the US taxpayers, are tired of funding your socialist paradise.
Cough up the marks, merks.
“It’s complicated” generally means “I’m seeing someone else.” Merkel is from what once was East Germany; she’s always had a fondness for the Russians.
All American troops should be removed from Germany–and German car exports to the U.S.
banned–=Merkel has been playing ball with Putin and Red China too long to put up with any longer.
Begging an occupation army not to leave…Stockholm Syndrome or Coitus Interruptus?
West Germany was on the front lines when we built our bases there.
Now the front lines are much further east, so it makes sense to forward deploy, even if the Germans weren’t being tight-fisted with their money expecting us to defend them.
If it makes you any happier, Angel, just think of it as “defunding the World Police.”