NATO's Eastern Allies Offer to Cut US Base Costs to Keep Troops From Leaving Ahead of Aug 27 Brussels Review Meeting

Bloomberg reported August 21, 2026 that NATO's eastern European members — including Poland and the Baltic states, which together host anywhere from 'a few hundred' US troops (Baltics) to several thousand (Poland) — are preparing to offer to shoulder a larger share of the costs of stationing American forces on their soil, in a bid to discourage the Trump administration from withdrawing troops as part of the Pentagon's ongoing six-month Europe force-posture review. The proposal is being readied for a session with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby in Brussels on August 27, and reflects the urgency eastern-flank states attach to preserving a credible deterrent against Russia even as the US presses allies broadly to take on more of the continent's conventional defense burden. Germany, which hosts more than a third of US troops in Europe, is separately absorbing the bulk of the roughly 5,000-troop US withdrawal already announced. Finnish President Alexander Stubb, addressing the broader rift, said 'there are issues on which we agree with the United States and issues on which we disagree.' Spain was noted as the exception among allies that declined to grant the US air-base access for Iran-war operations, a friction point that has featured in the Pentagon's separate loyalty-questionnaire review of allied alignment.