Trump to send troops from Germany to Poland to send signal to Russia

Poland's PresidentAndrzej Duda held a press conference with his US counterpart in Washington. The visit comes few weeks before Polish elections.

While the tour is being critiqued as a failure and an unwanted push to Duda's political campaign, what blindsided the US and its allies was a comment by US President Donald Trump.

When asked about a statement made by his office last week about reducing the number of troops from Germany, Trump quickly told the reporters at the White House “We'll probably be moving them (troops) from Germany to Poland.”

“They (Poland) asked us if we would send some additional troops. They're going to pay for that. They'll be paying for the sending of additional troops. We will probably be moving them from Germany to Poland,” Trump said.

“We're going to be reducing in Germany very substantially down to about 25,000 troops. We actually had 52,000 but we'll be moving it down to about 25,000,” he said.

“Germany's paying a very small fraction of what they're supposed to be paying. They should be paying two per cent and they're paying a little bit more than one per cent depending on how you calculate. They are paying less than one per cent,” he added.

Although he has not confirmed if all the troops, who are being redeployed, will be sent to Poland. Trump has sated that some of the troops might come back to their home country, some might go to Europe, but Poland will definitely be a priority.

The resident has also noted that the shift in troops will send a strong signal to Trump.

“A stronger signal sent to Russia is the fact that Germany is paying billions of dollars to purchase energy from Russia through the pipeline... You're giving billions of dollars to Russia, then we're supposed to defend you from Russia? So, I think it's very bad… I think the people of Germany are very unhappy about it,” he said.

However, after sending a "strong signal" to Russia, Trump expects to get along with Russia -- or as Trump said, "We expect to get along with everybody."

The move is being highly appreciated by the Polish President, who quickly flashed a smile and said, "It shows that if anyone wanted to attack Poland, it won't be a soft landing," Duda said. "Because the strongest army in the world is present and they would help us defend our borders."