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“This is not an American withdrawal from Europe or a signal of lessened commitment to NATO,” the statement said, adding that the shift “will not change the security environment in Europe.” The announcement drew a highly unusual condemnation from the Republican heads of the Senate and House Armed Services committees, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, who said that the decision jeopardized the US relationship with key allies in Europe. They also said it undermined President Trump’s recent bid to punish President Vladimir Putin of Russia for refusing to agree to a cease-fire in Ukraine. “This decision also sends the wrong signal to Russia at the very moment President Trump is applying pressure to force Vladimir Putin to come to the table to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. They added that Congress was not consulted about the move. About 84,000 US troops were stationed in Europe as of earlier this year, according to a Council on Foreign Relations estimate. The total fluctuates based on rotations and military exercises. About 1,000 troops in Romania will stay on, Romanian Defense Minister Ionut Mosteanu said in a news briefing in Bucharest. A NATO official said that even with the withdrawal, the US military has more forces in Europe than it did before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. There was a surge in US troops to Europe in the immediate weeks after Russia invaded, with the Pentagon sending resources to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank. But the Trump administration has wobbled on support for Ukraine, and Hegseth has indicated that he wants to bring home most, if not all, of the troops who were sent to help European allies after Russia’s invasion, defense officials said. Mosteanu said that Romanian officials had not been surprised by the decision and that Hegseth and other US officials had repeatedly conveyed to European allies that the United States would shift its focus. European officials have sought for months to shore up their security commitments and deterrents to Russia after the Trump administration de-emphasized US protection for Europe. Trump has demanded that NATO reduce its reliance on the United States, successfully pushing other member nations to pledge to increase their military spending. Still, the United States will continue to maintain significant troop presences in Eastern Europe. In Poland, where about 14,000 US troops are stationed, the defense ministry said it had not received a similar notice from Washington. US officials had repeatedly assured Warsaw that it would maintain, and possibly increase, its military presence in Poland, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s minister of national defense, told reporters. “Poland and the United States are each other’s strong allies,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said. Trump has warmed to Poland’s recently elected right-wing president, Karol Nawrocki, hosting him last month at the White House. The Pentagon’s decision to push ahead with the withdrawal without consulting congressional Republicans who have oversight authority of the Defense Department signaled a wider disagreement about where to focus US military resources. Though European allies said they had anticipated a shift, the two Republican lawmakers argued that such significant changes should have been undertaken in tandem with a wider group of NATO allies and US officials. The removal of a US brigade from Romania, an ally that has not only heeded Trump’s call for increased military spending but also hosts a US missile defense system, sent the wrong signal to the Kremlin, the lawmakers said. “Pulling back US forces from NATO’s Eastern flank prematurely, and just weeks after Russian drones violated Romanian airspace, undermines deterrence and risks inviting further Russian aggression,” Wicker and Rogers said in their statement. In Romania, the United States will pull US troops from the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base. In the country’s southeast, the base sits across the Black Sea from where Russia has stockpiled weapons in Crimea. Just two years ago, the deployment of the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division to the same base was widely viewed as a signal of deterrence to the Kremlin.
