When President Donald Trump returned to power, the overwhelming reaction from European leadership was that they would need to grit their teeth for four years. An anonymously quoted European diplomat summarised their views when they said that Brussels is waiting “until Trump is dead”. One hopes that they meant politically – though with Brussels, that is unlikely – but nevertheless, many, tired of waiting, have turned their hopes to something closer at hand: The 2026 midterm elections. At the Munich Security Conference last February, visiting Americans were pressed for their thoughts on the elections. And with polling showing Democrats with a not-unlikely chance to take the House of Representatives, Europeans are doubling down on private hopes that a new Congress next year will stop Trump from removing troops from Europe and gutting NATO.
These hopes are based on a false understanding of American politics. If President Trump wants to remove troops from Europe or gut NATO, he will have no difficulty doing so, no matter which party controls Congress.
To begin with, it has been a long time since American presidents waited for Congressional permission to move troops abroad in an offensive capacity. The notion that this is a post-Cold War, or even Cold War, era development is false. Woodrow Wilson – the man who nearly singlehandedly transformed America from a realist, national interest-based power into a democracy promoting interventionist nation – famously sent offensive troops into Russia during World War I without any sort of Congressional approval.
Nevertheless, presidential power has of course expanded since Wilson’s time. A 1970s attempt to limit the president’s power, the War Powers Act, supposedly limited the length of time (to 60 days) in which troops can be active in warfare abroad without Congressional approval. It also created a process through which Congress – by way of resolutions – can force troops to come home. It has completely failed to do so, as the President can simply veto any resolution. And the time limitation? The Iran War has recently put that out to pasture, with the Trump administration arguing that the 60-day clock was cancelled by the ceasefire.
Then there is the question of forcing troops to remain in Europe. Last year’s National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) – a yearly bill passed to authorise and/or reauthorise certain aspects of America’s vast defence apparatus – included a provision (section 1249) supposedly requiring the President to maintain a force posture of at least 76,000 troops in Europe. As the provision was in a must-pass bill, one which included other administration priorities, President Trump signed the legislation, though noted while doing so that he considered certain provisions unconstitutional.
Many Europeans quietly sighed with relief upon the passage of this provision. They were wrong to do so.
Firstly, the bill does nothing actually to stop the President from removing troops below the 76,000 benchmark. It lays out a laundry lists of tasks that must be accomplished first, including “consultations” with NATO allies, along with a series of reports. But these are all very easy to do. A “consultation” can be a quick phone call from a mid-level staffer to someone in an affected country, letting them know it is happening and asking for feedback. And a report can easily be written. These are not roadblocks; if anything, they will slow down the pace by a few months at worst.
New language for this year’s NDAA reinforces last year’s by…asking for more reports. There is a reason for this: Because it is an open question as to whether or not these laws are even constitutional, and Congress likely does not want to take the risk.
Europeans, with the exception of the French, may not be used to their leaders having immense discretion over military forces. But they do. In Germany, for example, the defence ministry is not even led by a member of the Chancellor’s party. In America, the President is constitutionally the commander-in-chief and is in charge of the executive branch. The Pentagon, led by the Secretary of War, is squarely a part of the executive branch. Therefore, a literal reading of the constitution – known as the unitary executive theory – leads one to conclude that the President has sole power over the movement of troops.
“But this will be challenged in the courts,” some European analysts might say. For starters, who will challenge it? One must have “standing” to do so – and only Congress would arguably have standing. But courts are loathe to get into these fights, and would almost certainly rule that it is a “political question”, one which must be decided between the branches themselves. Congress could then impeach and remove. But it will not do so either under a Republican Congress, and a Democrat-run Congress will not have the votes (two-thirds in the Senate) to remove.
Congress is also unlikely to fight Trump hard on this issue. Senators who hold a 20th century mentality when it comes to NATO – Russia is as bad as the Soviet Union, NATO is fighting for democracy, etc., etc. – are decreasing in number. Two Republican senators who would have opposed Trump on these issues, Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas, lost their primaries after Trump endorsed their opponents. To underscore how rare that is for those who may not know, never in American history have two Republican senators lost their primaries in the same election cycle, demonstrating how badly Republican voters want their elected representatives to go in Trump’s direction, instead of staying loyal to establishment ways of thinking.
In short, President Trump has until noon on January 20th, 2029 to move as many troops away from Europe as he would like. Already, he has announced 5,000 are leaving Germany, and Pentagon emissaries have told their counterparts that they will be cutting down on the amount of American bombers, jets, drones and more in Europe as well.
This is likely to be only the beginning – and if Vice President JD Vance succeeds Trump, it is likely only the beginning of the deluge. Europeans do not need to become American political experts to grasp American politics, just as Americans do not need to be able to navigate a European Union org chart in order to have a basic understanding of how Brussels works.
But they do need to understand that Congress will not be riding to their rescue.
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