German government spent €500m of on US troops

The German government has spent more than €500 million euros ($555 million) supporting US troops stationed in the country over the past seven years, dpa learned on Wednesday.

From that figure, €240 million went towards supporting former staff members as well as management and construction costs for the land and buildings used by US forces.

The €480 million that the German government spent between 2012 and 2019 on military construction work for NATO partners in Germany “almost exclusively” went to the US, the German Finance Ministry said in response to a question from parliamentarian Brigitte Freihold of the hard-left Die Linke party.

US President Donald Trump as well the US Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, threatened last week to withdraw some of the troops or potentially move them to Poland in response to Germany not meeting its NATO commitments on defence spending.

Germany is host to the largest number of US troops in Europe. A total of 35,000 are stationed in the country, with an additional 17,000 US and 12,000 German civilians employed by the US military. Tens of thousands more jobs depend on the US presence in the country.

The information from the Finance Ministry also shows that the US has cut its military presence in Germany by 3,000 soldiers in the past five years. Grenell had announced in September that the US would be increasing the number of soldiers by 1,500.

Source: dpa