NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has welcomed US President Donald Trump’s decision to send an additional 5,000 American troops to Poland, just days after the White House had paused the deployment amid a row with Germany over the Iran war.
Speaking on May 22, 2026 at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Helsingborg, Sweden, Rutte told reporters: “I welcome the announcement. Our military commanders are working on all the details, but of course I welcome it.”
The deployment had earlier been put on hold as part of a wider reduction of US forces in Europe. The Pentagon had also pulled 5,000 American soldiers out of Germany following criticism from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the war in Iran, launched after a joint Israeli-US offensive against Tehran on February 28, 2026.
Vice-President JD Vance played down the move at the time, telling reporters that it was “not a reduction” but “just a usual delay in the rotation [of troops] that sometimes happens in these situations”.
Trump’s reversal came hours after talks in Washington between Polish deputy defence minister Cezary Tomczyk and Thomas Curtis, head of strategic planning at the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Following the successful election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to support, and given our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will send 5,000 more troops to Poland,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, without giving further details.
Nawrocki has since hailed the “Polish-American alliance” as a “fundamental pillar” of security “for every Polish home and for the whole of Europe”.
“I defend and will continue to defend the Polish-American alliance, a fundamental pillar of security for every Polish home and for the whole of Europe,” the Polish leader wrote on social media. Good alliances, he added, were “based on cooperation, mutual respect and care for shared security”.
Nawrocki also thanked Trump for his “friendship towards Poland” and for “the decisions whose practical repercussions” could now be seen “with great clarity”.
The Helsingborg gathering is intended to prepare the next NATO summit, due to take place in Ankara on July 7-8, 2026. The meeting has nevertheless been overshadowed by US criticism of European allies for what Washington views as their limited involvement in the Middle East conflict.
Rutte said the deployment did not change the broader direction of travel. The trajectory facing NATO, he argued, was one in which “Europe is stronger”, with European allies depending less, “over time, step by step”, on “a single ally, the United States”.
He added that it was no surprise the White House had “other priorities” and could shift troops to other parts of the world such as the Indo-Pacific, as Washington had signalled in its latest national security review.
The Trump administration has been reviewing its military footprint on the European continent as part of the President’s push for NATO members to take a greater share of the burden of Europe’s defence.
