According to a recent study by YouGov, just under 50 percent of people in Germany support the withdrawal of US troops from the country. The study also revealed that politicians and voters disagree on the matter.

Support for US withdrawal

At the beginning of last month, Donald Trump signed off on a plan to withdraw nearly 10.000 US soldiers from Germany. Now, a survey undertaken by YouGov shows that 47 percent of respondents support this decision to reduce the number of US soldiers in Germany. One in four said they were in favour of all American soldiers being withdrawn. 

On the other hand, only 28 percent of respondents thought the number of US troops in Germany should remain the same, while just four percent wanted to increase the presence of American soldiers. 21 percent of people refused to answer.

US to withdraw a third of its troops

Currently, there are about 36.000 US troops in Germany, for which the federal government has spent almost a billion euros over the past ten years. The US Secretary of Defence, Mark Esper, announced last week that around 12.000 of these soldiers could be withdrawn.

While 6.400 of these soldiers will return to the US, the remaining 5.600 will be sent to other European NATO states, including Italy and Belgium.

Politicians disagree with voters

Despite people in Germany being largely in favour of reducing the number of US troops in the country, five out of six of Germany’s parliamentary parties oppose the withdrawal of US troops. The Left, however, supports the withdrawal of every US soldier from Germany.

Supporters of Angela Merkel’s CDU / CSU party are largely against the withdrawal of US troops, with more than 40 percent of people against the withdrawal. However, the majority of supporters of all the other parties were in favour of the withdrawal.