AfD Co-Chair Demands Full Withdrawal of US Troops from Germany

AfD co-chair Tino Chrupalla publicly called for the withdrawal of all approximately 38,000 US troops stationed in Germany, citing both the Iran war and the argument that distancing from the US would improve German-Iranian relations. While not government policy — Chancellor Merz's CDU/SPD coalition strongly rejected the demand — the statement reflected a significant strand of domestic German political opinion seeking to leverage the NATO-US crisis for reorientation away from US dependency. The AfD demand drew immediate condemnation from CDU and SPD officials who underscored Germany's permanent brigade in Lithuania and other NATO commitments. The episode highlighted how the US-NATO crisis was generating political pressures across the European political spectrum.