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| US soldiers in Grafenwoehr, southern Germany, on March 4. Photographer: Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images |
President Donald Trump’s directive to pull 9,500 troops from Germany hits home hard for friends of America like Edgar Knobloch, whose Bavarian town has been home to U.S. service members for seven decades.
Like Chancellor Angela Merkel, the mayor of Grafenwoehr was caught off guard by the latest sign of the U.S.’s deteriorating ties with a loyal ally.
This medieval town, with a tiny population dwarfed by the size of the American military presence, shows just what a shadow the U.S. has cast over Europe after World War II and what its retreat symbolizes in the eyes of locals and international observers. Another troop cut would signal a further break with a legacy of two generations.
Located near the former East German border, Grafenwoehr is a place where overseas U.S. military infrastructure and community bonds survived the end of the Cold War. Locals celebrate Thanksgiving and enjoy spare ribs. Every year, they turn out by the thousands for the German-American Folk Festival to share beer, bratwurst and country music with the roughly 11,000 U.S. troops based at NATO’s biggest training area in Europe.
“They’re completely integrated here,” Knobloch, 55, said in an interview. “Restaurants are bilingual. There are mixed marriages, mixed families. You often hear from the older members of the community: ‘The Americans liberated us.’”
There hasn’t been much nostalgia between Trump and Merkel, who have clashed repeatedly over trade and Germany’s slow timetable for meeting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s defense spending target. Last month, Merkel snubbed Trump on his plan to hold an in-person Group of Seven summit in June which he’d like Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend.
U.S.-German relations have become “complicated,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said, in the first comment by a government official about the planned troop withdrawal. As of Sunday, the government still hadn’t received any official communication from the U.S. “Should there be a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops, we will take note of it,” Maas told the tabloid Bild am Sonntag.
While Trump has taken aim at Germany’s economic might, Merkel — the longest-serving G-7 leader after 15 years in power — has stared him down across a broad front, from defending the rules-based global economy to policy disputes such as defense spending and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany.
A physicist by training, Merkel also contrasted with Trump in her science-based approach to reopening Germany from its coronavirus lockdown.
Lawmakers and government officials in Berlin criticized Trump’s troop decision, which would cut U.S. forces in Germany by slightly more than a quarter, as a snub. It’s potentially damaging for perceptions of NATO and its role in maintaining global security, according to Roderich Kiesewetter, foreign policy spokesman for Merkel’s parliamentary caucus.
“Keeping NATO together seems less important to Trump than was the case under” his predecessor Barack Obama, Kiesewetter said Monday in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio, adding that “it’s not justifiable because he’s also hurting the U.S.” Most U.S. troops in Europe are stationed in Germany.
“We’re not vassals, and these things should be discussed on a equal footing within NATO,” he said. “It’s clear that election campaigning or the deep trouble he’s in is more important to him than keeping the alliance together.”
Trump’s decision and the way it was communicated demonstrate how much Germany’s relations have cooled with a U.S. president who has publicly questioned NATO’s value.
Green party lawmaker Tobias Lindner evoked Trump’s appearances at NATO summits, where has he berated U.S. allies to step up defense spending and called Germany “a captive to Russia” for refusing to halt the Nord Stream 2 project.
Source: Angela Cullen and Arne Delfs | Bloomberg
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