HELSINGBORG, Sweden — NATO is bracing for the United States to reduce the forces and assets it provides to allies in case of an attack, as the Trump administration takes substantial steps to pull back the expansive U.S. military footprint in Europe.
The U.S. plans, somewhat muddled by a seemingly countervailing announcement from President Donald Trump, are top of the agenda on Friday as Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with NATO foreign ministers in Sweden.
On the eve of the NATO gathering here, Trump, in a post to Truth Social, said the United States would send 5,000 additional troops to Poland. That is the same number the administration had said it would pull back from Germany as Trump grew frustrated with European leaders’ hesitation to more directly join the war against Iran.
Rubio told reporters on Friday that reassessment of the U.S. military presence in NATO countries preceded transatlantic tensions over Iran and would continue.
The United States has global targets “in terms of our force deployment, and that constantly requires us to reexamine where we put troops, and this is not a punitive thing,” Rubio said. “That’s a process that will continue, I think, in a very positive and productive way.”
Still, he said Trump’s “disappointment” with European leaders over Iran would “have to be addressed.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte welcomed Trump’s post on Poland, but said commanders are “working through the details” and that the announcement does not change U.S. plans to shrink its military presence in Europe.
“Let’s be clear,” he said, NATO remains on a path to “making sure we will over time, step-by-step, be less reliant on one ally only, which is the United States,” while the Europeans “step up more.”
European officials have downplayed the U.S. moves, saying that they expect a gradual U.S. military drawdown as they shoulder greater responsibility, and that a few thousand troops will have little impact.
But the Europeans have also sought to persuade the Pentagon for months that any withdrawal should be coordinated, giving NATO allies the time to backfill gaps and ensure the continent is not be left exposed.
That ambition is clashing with the reality of Trump’s approach to Washington’s long-standing alliances. Last month, the president announced on Truth Social that the U.S. would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany in the next year, as Trump berated European leaders for not endorsing the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
The Pentagon later abruptly decided to withdraw thousands of soldiers from a planned deployment to Poland. The announcements caught allies off guard.
Some European diplomats said they expect Trump’s announcement of a new deployment to Poland would involve redirecting troops from Germany farther east to Poland. Earlier this week, NATO’s top commander, U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, told reporters in Brussels that there would be an overall “5,000 troops coming out of Europe.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Friday that “the presence of American troops in Poland will be maintained more or less at previous levels.”
“All’s well that ends well,” he told reporters in Sweden.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said the various U.S. announcements were “confusing indeed, and not always easy to navigate.”
“But we need to continue to focus on what we do and not what everyone else says,” she said. “So we need to continue to invest in our own defense.”
NATO allies are also preparing for a U.S. change in the NATO Force Model, a system through which the alliance’s 32 member states identify forces they could activate in the event of an attack on NATO territory or some other major crisis.
Two European diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive details, said they expect a U.S. decision soon that would shrink its contribution to that pool of forces and assets available to Europe in wartime.
The scale and timeline of any reduction were not clear. The exact makeup of those forces is not public. A major decrease could further stoke anxiety about U.S. guarantees that underpin the continent’s security, as European leaders warn of an emboldened Russia next door.
The uncertainties, along with Trump’s NATO bashing and foreign policy gyrations on Russia, have pushed the Western military alliance to a new precipice.
Since the Trump administration took office, the Pentagon has made clear that the U.S. intends to shift resources elsewhere and expects European nations to take charge of their conventional defenses. American officials have said assurances that the U.S. nuclear arsenal will support NATO allies remain intact.
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