Michael Hernandez
19 May 2026•Update: 19 May 2026
Vice President JD Vance maintained Tuesday that the US is weighing options as it considers what to do with 4,000 troops that were to be deployed to NATO ally Poland.
“We’re not talking about pulling every single American troop out of Europe. We’re talking about shifting some resources around in a way that maximizes American security. I don’t think that’s bad for Europe. That’s encouraging Europe to take more ownership,” he told reporters at the White House.
“The United States cannot be the policeman of the world. We want to be good allies. We want to make sure that our troop presence promotes regional stability in Europe. The president has not said, though he could, the president has not said that he’s taking all of the troops out of Europe, but Europe has to stand on its own two feet,” he added.
The comments come days after US media reported that the Pentagon had cancelled a planned rotational deployment of around 4,000 soldiers from the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division to Poland. The deployment had already entered advanced preparation stages before being halted.
Vance described the change as a “delay in troop rotation.”
“Those troops could go elsewhere in Europe; we could decide to send them elsewhere. We actually haven’t made the final determination about where those troops are ultimately going to go, but what I’m saying is it is not accurate to say that we are pulling a bunch of troops out,” he added.
The decision has nonetheless triggered concern in Poland because the US military presence has become one of the central pillars of the country’s defense policy since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said earlier that he received assurances that the decision was logistical rather than strategic, and insisted deterrence remained intact. He has also argued that maintaining transatlantic unity remains essential despite disagreements about burden-sharing inside NATO.