President Donald Trump has announced plans to send thousands of additional U.S. troops to Poland, apparently reversing last week’s decision to halt an Army brigade that was headed there.
Last week, the Pentagon said the 4,200-person brigade would not be deploying, even though its equipment had already arrived and the unit underwent months of training for the mission. Now, Trump says 5,000 troops will be sent to Poland.
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What’s changed?
On Truth Social, the president said the decision was driven in part by the election of Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki.
It also comes after weeks of conflicting statements from Trump and his administration about reducing, not increasing, American forces in Europe.
Speaking to reporters ahead of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Sweden Friday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio downplayed the turnaround.
“Obviously, the United States continues to have global commitments that it needs to meet in terms of our force deployment, and that constantly requires us to reexamine where we put troops,” Rubio said. “And this is not a punitive thing. It’s just something that’s ongoing. And it was preexisting, all these recent reports and tensions and so forth.”
International response
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte welcomed the decision, while also repeating that Europe needs to continue taking on more of its own defense responsibilities.
“The trajectory we are on, which is a stronger Europe and a stronger NATO, making sure we will, over time, step by step, be less reliant on one ally only, as we have been for so long, which is the United States,” Rutte said. “So, that also for them, they have the possibility and the option to pivot more toward other priorities, which are also in our interest, will continue. But of course, I very much welcome the announcement.”
“I want to thank President Trump for his announcement that the rotation, the presence of American troops in Poland will be maintained more or less at previous levels,” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said.
He added, “I think Poland’s reputation as a country that takes defense seriously also helps.”
Germany also responded positively, despite Trump recently announcing plans to pull 5,000 troops from that country after Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized the U.S. over the war in Iran.
“I very much welcome the decision to deploy additionally 5,000 troops in Poland,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said. “This is a good decision because it serves not only for Poland’s security but for the security of the whole alliance and so also for us. So, this is absolutely in our interest. We support that very much and we are a very close ally to Poland as well as to the United States.”
US military commitments
Meanwhile, the debate over American military commitments continues here at home.
House Republicans on Thursday delayed a vote on legislation that would require the president to pull U.S. forces out of the Iran conflict after struggling to garner enough GOP support to keep it from passing. That vote is now pushed off until at least June.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said the vote was delayed to give lawmakers who were absent a chance to take part.
“We had the votes without question and they knew it, and as a result they’re playing a political game,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-NY, told reporters afterward.
Republicans in the Senate are also working to shore up enough votes to dismiss a separate war powers resolution that advanced to a final vote earlier this week with the support of four GOP senators.
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