US Renews Threat to Withdraw Its Troops From Germany, Send Them to Poland Instead
The American envoy to Germany recently came under fire for his numerous statements criticising the German government's actions with respect to the Nord Stream 2 project and reluctance to participate in US military endeavours.
US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell has harshly criticised German military spending in an interview with German news agency DPA, claiming that Berlin abuses its friendship with Washington.
"It is really insulting to expect that the US taxpayer pays for more than 50,000 Americans in Germany, but the Germans use their trade surplus for domestic purposes", he said.
Grenell further praised an idea by US President Donald Trump, recently recalled by US ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, to redeploy troops from Germany to Poland. The envoy argued that it was time for Berlin to "pay for its own defence" and for the US to act in order to ensure this.
This is not the first time the US ambassador has criticised the German government's decisions. Grenell slammed Berlin's reluctance to participate in an American maritime coalition in the Gulfand threatened German companies with sanctions over the government's support of the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. German lawmaker Klaus Ernst, head of the Bundestag Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy, slammed the envoy's words as "unacceptable", reminding him that Germany is not a "US-colony" to be meddled with by Washington.