Donald Trump (Photo: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
“Based on the successful election of current Polish President Karol Nawrocki, whom I was proud to support, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will send an additional 5,000 troops to Poland,” he wrote in Truth Social.
Trump did not provide details, and it was unclear whether the troops were part of a rotational deployment that the Pentagon had previously postponed.
On May 20, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. was reducing the total number of brigade combat teams deployed to Europe from four to three – a return to the levels of brigade combat teams in Europe in 2021. At the same time, the defense department said that because of this decision, the deployment of United States forces to Poland, “which is an exemplary U.S. ally,” is being “temporarily delayed.”
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany. Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdes later said on May 18 that the decision to cancel the deployment of 4,000 US troops to Poland was made after multiple levels of consultation and not out of the blue. And he added that the military department was shelving plans to deploy a battalion of Tomahawk ground-launched cruise missiles to Germany.
