European Security — 2026-05-05

Trump Withdraws 5,000 Troops from Germany and Cancels Tomahawk Deployment After Merz Spat

Trump ordered the Pentagon on May 1 to redeploy approximately 5,000 service members from Germany, reducing the total to near pre-2022 levels and affecting at least one brigade combat team, The Hill reported. CFR senior fellow Liana Fix reported on May 4 that the administration is also considering canceling Tomahawk cruise missiles scheduled for Germany in 2027, a deployment Biden and then-Chancellor Scholz agreed to in 2024 to counter Russian systems in Kaliningrad. Fix noted that U.S. Tomahawk stockpiles have been depleted by the Iran war and that delays in NASAMS and HIMARS munitions deliveries have already been reported. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees criticized the withdrawal on a bipartisan basis and warned against further reductions, according to CFR.

Analysis
The potential Tomahawk cancellation, per a single CFR assessment by Liana Fix without independent confirmation, shifts the Germany drawdown from a bilateral personnel dispute into a structural erosion of NATO deterrent capacity in the Kaliningrad corridor, where no allied substitute exists. Depleted U.S. Tomahawk stockpiles and confirmed delays in NASAMS and HIMARS deliveries mean the capability gap cannot be quickly closed. The Tomahawk threat may instead be coercive signaling designed to accelerate German defense spending rather than settled policy. Trump will likely announce further European troop reductions beyond the Germany order by end of 2026. Bipartisan Armed Services Committee criticism has not reversed any Trump force posture decision to date.

3 sources

Trump Is Pulling Troops From Germany. The Missiles Are a Bigger Problem. - Council on Foreign Relations
Striking reversal: How Europeans should react to Trump missile cancellation - European Council on Foreign Relations
German defense ministry: No definitive cancellation of US Tomahawk deployment - The Hill