US President Donald Trump said the United States will soon decide whether to reduce its military presence in Germany, which hosts the largest concentration of U.S. forces in Europe. “The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” he posted on his Truth Social platform.
According to the U.S. Defense Manpower Data Center, more than 36,000 active service members were stationed in Germany as of December 2025. That figure includes personnel at Ramstein in southwestern Germany, the U.S.’s largest overseas air base. Germany is home to five of the seven U.S. garrisons in Europe; the United Kingdom and Italy host the next-largest American forces on the continent.
Rumors about potential U.S. troop withdrawals from Germany have circulated in recent months. Trump’s announcement followed comments by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the United States had been “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership and criticized Iranian negotiating behavior and the Revolutionary Guards. Merz said: “The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result. An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.”
Trump replied on Truth Social that Merz “doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul later clarified Merz’s remarks in an interview with DW, saying they were directed at Iran’s behavior and not at the United States. Wadephul made the comments to DW’s Berlin bureau chief Max Hoffmann in New York City.