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View Full Version : Spend more on defence or we move troops to Poland, U.S. envoy tells Germany




Swordsmyth
08-09-2019, 09:16 PM
An envoy of U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that Chancellor Angela Merkel's unwillingness to boost defence 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 defence 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 programmes," Grenell told the dpa news agency.
Germany's fiscal plans foresee the defence 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.


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 towards 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.

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/spend-more-defence-move-troops-170946153.html