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Like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the latest signs of deteriorating America’s ties to loyal allies have hit the mayor of Grafenworth unexpectedly.
This medieval city, overshadowed by a small platoon of American troops stationed here, only shows what forces the United States threw into Europe after World War II and what the troop withdrawal symbolizes in the eyes of local and international observers. Another reduction in capacity would mean an additional gap in the legacy of two generations.
Located near the former East German border, Grafenworth is a place where America’s foreign military infrastructure. USA And harmonious community ties have endured the end of the Cold War. Locals celebrate Thanksgiving and try the ribs. Every year thousands of them flock to the German-American Folk Festival to have a glass of beer, taste Bratwurst sausages, and listen to country music with some 11,000 American soldiers based at the largest NATO training base in Europe.
“They are fully integrated here,” Knobloch, 55, said in an interview. – Restaurants speak two languages. Many mixed marriages, mixed families. We often hear from high-level community members: “The Americans set us free.”
There is little nostalgia for the relationship between Trump and Angela Merkel, as they have repeatedly clashed over trade and Germany’s slow schedule, lagging behind NATO’s 2% defense target. GDP of the country.
In May this year, Merkel criticized Trump for his plans to hold a G-7 leaders meeting at his official residence in Kemp David, where he also wanted to see Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Relations between the United States and Germany are becoming “complicated,” said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, the first comment by a government official about the planned withdrawal.
As of Sunday, the government had not yet received any official communication from the United States.
“If the partial withdrawal of US troops is announced, we will first carefully analyze that information,” Maas told Bild am Sonntag.
Although. Trump has focused his rhetoric on Germany’s economic power, and Merkel, the longest serving G7 political leader in fifteen years in office, is baffled by a broad front, from defending the rules-based global economy to political disputes. on defense spending and portfolio. Nord Stream 2 for the transportation of Russian gas to Germany.
According to the physicist’s specialty, Angela Merkel’s science-based approach to opening Germany after quarantine also differed from that of D. Trump.
Berlin lawmakers and government officials have criticized Trump’s decision to halve US troops in Germany as an insult. According to Roderich Kiesewetter, foreign policy spokesperson for Merkel’s parliamentary group, such a decision could undermine attitudes towards NATO and its role as an alliance to maintain global security.
“The goal of preserving NATO seems less important to Trump than to his predecessor, Barack Obama,” Kiesewetter told Deutschlandfunk in early June, adding that “it is unacceptable because it also hurts the United States.” Most of the American troops in Europe are deployed in Germany.
“We are not vassals, those things must be discussed with NATO,” he said. “Obviously, the election campaign or the serious challenges he faced are more important to him than the desire to preserve the alliance.”
Trump’s decision and the way it is presented show how great Germany’s relationship has been with the President of the United States, who has publicly questioned the benefits of NATO.
Green Party lawmaker Tobias Lindner recalled Trump’s appearances at NATO summits, where he inundated US allies for insufficient defense spending and called Germany “Russian captivity” for refusing to suspend the Nord Stream 2 project. .
“Anyone who does this should not have this opinion in Brussels and remind alliance partners of their responsibilities,” Lindner said.
However, the partial withdrawal of US troops may have military implications, as Germany today operates primarily as a hub for US operations in other parts of the world, such as the Middle East and North, a German government official has asked not be identified. Other major US locations USA They include Ramstein Air Force Base and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center Hospital.
During the prosperity of post-war relations, American troops were received in West Germany as liberators from the Nazis and protected from the Soviet invasion. Older Germans recall how Elvis Preslis, called to serve in the United States Army, was assigned to Fridberg, north of Frankfurt. To the delight of young German girls, he even recorded a broken German song about his time there at the time. The military closed that post in 2007.
Important partners
Moods began to change in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when NATO’s decision to deploy Pershing II ballistic missiles to counter Soviet ballistic missiles sparked mass protests in West Germany.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, some German politicians have been calling for the removal of US nuclear weapons from German soil.
The ties that had developed between American troops rotating throughout Germany also left their mark on the United States. 85 percent Americans rate US military bases in Germany as important structures for national security, while only 52 percent. Germans believe bases are important to their own national security, according to a survey by Pew Research and the Koerber Foundation published last November.
However, Germans seem to value the United States more as an important partner than Americans tend to see Germany as such, according to the survey.
Reports that Trump is considering new restrictions on the military and the possible transfer of some troops to Poland have been circulating for at least two years. Meanwhile, the US military capabilities. USA In Germany they fell from a peak in the 1960s to 274,000 (Trump told reporters that 52,000 troops are currently being held in Germany and that the number will drop to 25,000).
“In any case, it would be regrettable to do so,” Norbert Roettgen, an ally of Merkel, who heads the German Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said in an interview with Funke Media Group. “I don’t see a rational basis for such a conclusion.”
“We are very sorry”
As with previous force reductions, German regions where troops are deployed will suffer an economic blow. About half of the US troops are deployed in Rhineland-Palatinate, which borders France, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
“That decision will affect not only 9,500 soldiers, but their families as well,” a total of about 20,000 Americans said, “Peter Beyer, the government’s coordinator for transatlantic relations, told DPA. He expressed concern about the long-term damage to relations between the United States and Germany.
According to Grafenworth Mayor E. Knobloch, US soldiers feel like a real part of the local community: They appear to have obeyed and followed the current measures in Bavaria against the coronavirus pandemic. The mayor is almost certain that the United States will not abandon Grafenworth, in part due to military investment in the structure in recent years.
“It would be very unfortunate if it was still available,” said the mayor. “Grafenvore is a good example of how people communicate in their daily lives.”
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