US Stops Thousands of Troops En Route To Poland
The U.S. has stopped a planned rotation of over 4,000 American troops en route to Europe, as the U.S.’ European allies rush to spend more on defense while waiting to see how many soldiers President Donald Trump and his administration will pull from the continent in the coming months.
Newsweek understands some of the U.S. Army troops from the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, had already departed from their home base in Fort Hood, Texas, for Poland when the order came to halt the scheduled rotation.
A temporary deployment of troops to Europe was “paused” so the U.S. can re-evaluate where its soldiers and military equipment are dotted around Europe, Lithuania’s defense minister, Robertas Kaunas told the Baltic country’s LRT state broadcaster on Thursday. NATO member Lithuania shares borders with Poland and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
The Pentagon declined to comment when approached for comment on Thursday.
The U.S. has long said it is looking at withdrawing a significant chunk of the roughly 80,000 American soldiers stationed in Europe away from the continent, as Washington turns its gaze toward China’s growing power in the Indo-Pacific and contends with the strain of two and a half months of war in the Middle East.
Trump has already said he will cut 5,000 soldiers from the vast U.S. presence in Germany, and left the door open to slicing this further-although this is seen as largely a reaction to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticizing the U.S.’ war against Iran.
The U.S. has not yet published a long-awaited document detailing where it will deploy its military forces across the globe, keeping allies guessing about the future of U.S. troop footprints.
For this type of rotational deployment, where a brigade will typically spend nine months deployed in Europe before being replaced by several thousand fresh personnel, heavy military equipment like tanks will often travel by sea ahead of most of the soldiers. Further troop arrivals will follow in stages, predominantly traveling on aircraft.
The Polish rotational deployment was part of approximately 20,000 U.S. soldiers that were sent to beef up American forces in Europe when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Another brigade deployed at the same time to Romania, which shares a border with Ukraine, was withdrawn in late 2025.
Newsweek understands former President Joe Biden’s administration had discussed withdrawing these additional brigades from Eastern Europe before the end of the Democrat’s term, but the order was not given before the new government took office in January 2025.
Polish officials denied Warsaw would be impacted by suspended U.S. troop deployments, with Polish Minister without Portfolio Tomasz Siemoniak insisting the “cancellation of [a] U.S. Army rotation does not apply to Poland.”
Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s defense minister, said this did “not concern Poland” and was related to previously-announced changes, appearing to reference the German troop drawdown.
U.S. forces stationed in Eastern Europe aim to deter a possible Russian invasion of countries close to Russian soil, like the Baltic states and Poland.
Poland also shares a border with Ukraine-which has warned other European nations will come under Russian attack if its defenses against Moscow’s troops fall-and Belarus, a key Russian ally that allowed the Kremlin to use its territory to launch its war on Ukraine more than four years ago.
Eastern European countries are concerned that U.S. troop withdrawals from the continent, particularly from its eastern flank, could be seen by Moscow as a signal that the U.S. wouldn’t come to their aid if Russian tanks roll over their borders.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania are all NATO members, and all countries in the alliance are obligated to come to their defense however they see fit if one nation is attacked. This is meant to discourage a potential enemy from attacking any member of the alliance, because they could be faced with the military strength of all 32 members, the most powerful of which is the U.S.
A senior NATO military official told Newsweek rotational forces were not factored into NATO’s plans to defend the continent from attack, and the alliance would “maintain a strong presence” in Eastern Europe.
Most of the 10,000 American troops in Poland are rotated in and out regularly.
NATO separately has multinational forces, including a limited number of U.S. troops, deployed in Eastern Europe, which the alliance boosted in 2022.
A NATO official told Newsweek the alliance’s members were aware the U.S. is working out how to change where its forces are deployed in Europe and how many troops are stationed on the continent, but said Canada and Germany were increasing their presence in the east.
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This story was originally published May 15, 2026 at 1:42 AM.