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US Envoy Tells Germany: Spend More on Defense or We Move Troops to Poland

Reuters

   BERLIN - An envoy of U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Friday
   that Chancellor Angela Merkel's unwillingness to boost defense spending
   might give the United States no choice but to move American troops
   stationed in Germany to Poland.

   The comments by Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, signal
   Trump's impatience with Merkel's failure to raise defense spending to
   2% of economic output as mandated by the NATO military alliance.

   "It is offensive to assume that the U.S. taxpayers continue to pay for
   more than 50,000 Americans in Germany but the Germans get to spend
   their [budget] surplus on domestic programs," Grenell told the dpa news
   agency.

   Germany's fiscal plans foresee the defense budget of NATO's
   second-largest member rising to 1.37% of output next year before
   falling to 1.24% in 2023.

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