HELSINGBORG, Sweden — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Friday praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement to deploy 5,000 U.S. troops to Poland — a dramatic change on last week’s move to cut the presence of American forces in the country.
He was echoed by Polish politicians celebrating the policy shift.
Speaking on Friday to reporters in Sweden during a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, Rutte said he “welcomed” the announcement and confirmed military commanders were now “working on all the details.”
Trump announced the shift on Thursday night in a Truth Social post, saying the decision was linked to his admiration for Poland’s MAGA-aligned President Karol Nawrocki.
That followed last week’s decision by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to halt a planned deployment of a 4,000-troop armored brigade to Poland — something that blindsided Poland, one of America’s most loyal European allies and one of NATO’s top defense spenders.
Hegseth’s Poland move was linked to an earlier decision by Trump to punish German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for criticizing the war against Iran by removing 5,000 troops from Germany.
Rutte on Friday stressed Trump’s latest deployment decision would not change NATO’s longer-term push for “Europe to be stronger” so that, “over time, step by step,” European allies become less dependent “on a single ally, the United States.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that direction of travel, hinting on Friday that further drawdowns of U.S. troops were in the works. But he insisted those reductions would not be reprisals — and would be coordinated with allies. The earlier moves in Poland and Germany caught European countries off guard.
“The United States continues to have global commitments that it needs to meet in terms of our force deployment and that constantly requires us to reexamine where we put troops,” he told reporters. “This is not a punitive thing, it’s just something that’s ongoing.”
“That’s a process that will continue … I think in a very positive and productive way in collaboration with our allies.”
Rubio added Trump would address his “disappointment” with European countries at NATO’s July leaders’ summit in Ankara. Earlier this week, the secretary of state remarked that Washington was “very disappointed in NATO right now,” singling out Spain for refusing to allow U.S. forces to use its military bases for attacks on Iran.
Polish delight
Officials in Warsaw celebrated the news of the troop deployment, with Nawrocki thanking Trump for his “friendship toward Poland” and for “the decisions whose practical impact we see very clearly today.”
“The security of Poland and the Poles is my top priority,” he wrote on X on Thursday night.
Marcin Przydacz, Nawrocki’s foreign policy adviser, said in a radio interview that the policy reversal was the result of “presidential diplomacy” rooted in the personal relationship between the two presidents; Trump endorsed Nawrocki in last year’s Polish election.
Przydacz also put the decision in the context of the long-running political battle between Nawrocki and pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk, condemning the government leader for not pressing for a redeployment of American troops from “his beloved Germany.”
In a social media post, Tusk thanked everyone involved in the policy change, including “President Nawrocki, ministers, members of Congress, and friends of Poland in the U.S.”
Hegseth’s decision last week had come under fire from lawmakers from both parties in the U.S. Congress, worried about the signal it would send to one of America’s best friends in Europe.
Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said Trump’s move proved Polish-American ties remained “very strong” and described Poland as an “ironclad ally” of Washington. “It’s good that we fight together for the fundamental issues of our homeland’s security,” he wrote on X.
“All’s well that ends well,” Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said during a press briefing in Sweden. In addition to Nawrocki, he attributed the decision to lobbying efforts by “friends of Poland” in the U.S. Congress and diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic.
“We were acting in parallel, marching in parallel, striking together,” he said. “And we have a result.”
Wojciech Kość and Bartosz Brzeziński contributed reporting.
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