Polish President Karol Nawrocki said on Wednesday that Poland wants to host the 5,000 US troops the Pentagon is planning to withdraw from Germany over the next year, a step that was announced due to Berlin’s criticism of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
“If President Donald Trump decides to reduce the American military presence in Germany, then we in Poland are ready to receive American soldiers,” Nawrocki said, according to POLITICO, which reported that the Polish leader said he would personally lobby Trump to send the troops east.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said a day earlier that Warsaw would take “any opportunity” to increase the number of troops in Poland, but said he didn’t want to “poach” them from allies over concerns about European disunity.
According to State Department numbers from last year, the US has 10,000 troops in Poland, a level that was reached as part of a buildup overseen by President Biden both before and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the Trump administration wanted to “punish” NATO countries that didn’t support the war with Iran by withdrawing troops and moving them to NATO countries that did support the conflict, such as Poland, Romania, or Lithuania, meaning the move may lead to more US forces being deployed closer to Russia.
The Pentagon announced last year that it would withdraw about 3,000 troops from Romania and other parts of Eastern Europe, much to the chagrin of Russia hawks in Congress, but the major buildup of US forces on NATO’s “eastern flank” remains as it was under the Biden administration.
