The United States' Standing Representative to NATO, Ambassador Matthew Whitaker, stated on Thursday at the Cincu Training Area that the U.S. has deployed troops to the area after the invasion of Ukraine and that his country still has more troops in Romania now than it had in 2022.
First of all, the rotation of American troops, as I said before, was part of a process that the United States is always analyzing in terms of how we are deployed. We deployed troops after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Everyone expected that, eventually, we would withdraw some of those troops - it was time to rotate the 101st Airborne Division - back to Kentucky. And it was very natural for us to do that. We did it in complete coordination with all our allies, but especially here, in Romania. Many discussions at many levels, both military and political. And I just want to emphasize that we still have more troops in Romania now than we had in 2022. We have plans in the future to have troops and training opportunities here and in NATO allied territories, said Ambassador Matthew Whitaker, who was in Cincu on the occasion of the Distinguished Visitors Day at the Dacian Fall 2025 (DAFA 2025) exercise.
The American official showed that Romania has been a "fantastic partner", and the U.S. will continue to collaborate closely with the Romanians, so as to ensure that those capabilities that are to be developed and acquired, in the perspective of the allocation of 5% of GDP, as agreed in The Hague, are meant to address current threats.
The United States remains committed to NATO, remains committed to Euro-Atlantic security, but we have also been very clear in expecting our European allies to match, to do much more, and we see that. And today is evidence not only that Romania and France are doing more, but also by all the flags that are represented behind me. You know, there is nothing to interpret in the fact that the United States has naturally rotated a force, which was intended to be a force for growth, and continues to maintain more troops here in Romania than we had before the war in Ukraine began, Matthew Whitaker said.
The Minister of National Defense, Ionut Mosteanu, announced two weeks ago that the American forces remain unchanged at the Deveselu and Campia Turzii bases, the only change being at the Mihail Kogalniceanu base, where a rotational brigade from the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army will no longer be deployed.
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