A senior White House official, quoted by Reuters on Thursday, said that President Donald Trump discussed with his advisers the option of withdrawing some US forces from Europe due to his dissatisfaction with what he sees as the allies' failure in NATO to help secure the Strait of Hormuz and his anger over no progress in his plans to annex Greenland.
The official, who requested anonymity, added that no decision has yet been made, nor has the White House issued any directives to the Department of Defense (Pentagon) to develop specific plans to reduce forces on the European continent.
Reuters observed that merely conducting such discussions indicates how relations between Washington and its European allies in NATO have deteriorated over the past months, revealing that the recent visit of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to the White House did not result in a significant improvement in the relations across the Atlantic, which can be said to be at their lowest levels since the founding of the alliance in 1949.
