American military personnel are a common sight across Europe, stationed in Germany but also far-flung regions like the Azores, Romania, northern Norway, Sicily and many other locations. But since he returned to the White House in 2025, US President Donald Trump has threatened to cut troop numbers at those bases, most notably in Germany . A similar announcement to halt a scheduled deployment to Poland was walked back on Thursday, when Trump said he would send an additional 5,000 soldiers there due to his good personal relationship with Poland's right-wing nationalist president,  Karol Nawrocki . Why are so many US troops stationed in Europe? After the end of World War II in 1945, the allied bloc which had defeated Nazi Germany disintegrated into two camps: one led by the US and other Western states, and another headed by the  Soviet Union . The former founded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 amid the nascent Cold War .…