(AFP) – Around the US air base of Ramstein in southwest Germany, many people have watched with alarm as President Donald Trump’s team has cast doubt on America’s future military presence in Europe. For decades, locals have endured the roar of fighter jets but also forged close economic and cultural bonds with many of the 50,000 American military personnel and their relatives living there now.
“They are the economy here,” said Andreas Hausmann, owner of the Hotel America, where he estimates that two-thirds of guests are from the United States. “Every craftsman, every plumber, every painting company, every small business, even bakeries, taxi companies — everyone is indirectly dependent… on the airbase,” he told AFP. “If they pull the plug here, we will be socially destroyed.”
Many Germans have long felt a sense of gratitude to the United States, which helped rebuild the country after Nazi Germany’s World War II defeat and made the young democracy the location for many key Cold War bases. Many people are stunned by Washington’s new stance toward Europe, especially after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned NATO allies last month not to assume the US troop presence on the continent “will last forever”.
Hausmann said he was shocked to watch last week’s White House clash in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “I thought it was AI, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Hausmann said, though he agreed on the need for diplomacy to end the Ukraine war.
– ‘Base like a city’ –
The wider sense of shock at the changing transatlantic dynamic is palpable in Ramstein, where many residents have lived shoulder-to-shoulder with American service personnel and their families for decades. “I met my ex-husband on the street here in Ramstein,” said social worker Svenja Miller, 42. Miller, who has two children with a US citizen currently stationed in the US, said, “the Americans are nice to have around. They’re friendly and open.”
“They’re also important customers here, for everything from real estate to nail studios,” she said. “If they weren’t here, Ramstein would be bankrupt.” Some argue that heightened security concerns since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks have kept American forces on base more, making it harder for inter-cultural friendships to form. “The base is like a city all by itself, there’s a lot on offer there,” said David Sirakov, head of the Transatlantic Academy in nearby Kaiserslautern. “People on the base pull back a bit, spend time with their families, go on trips, but aren’t really present in the region,” he said.
Still, Americans spend about 1.4 billion euros ($1.47 billion) a year in the local economy, according to the regional chamber of commerce. Its head Veronika Pommer said that some businesses specialized in American customers, including moving companies, and that “they are watching very closely what will happen”. She voiced hope that a US troop withdrawal would not come because it would “of course leave an economic gap”.
Two 18-year-old students taking a break downtown said a Ramstein without the Americans would be a less fun place. Beatrisa Petkova, from Bulgaria, said young Americans at her high school brought benefits besides English-language practice — while noting that “most Americans dress like they’re yoga teachers or something”. “If only Germans were here, things would be a lot less colorful,” added her friend, Meryem Tezcan. “Germans are, well, they’re a bit the same.”
– ‘American lives’ –
Following Trump’s warnings, Friedrich Merz, Germany’s likely next chancellor, has also warned of the need for Europe to “gradually become independent” of the US security umbrella. Some experts voice doubt that a US withdrawal looms, especially from the key Ramstein base, and also question the wisdom of such a move.
Any drastic withdrawal “would be more than unwise,” said Sirakov, arguing that Ramstein allows the United States to project power across parts of Asia and Africa, where it is competing with China for markets and resources. He acknowledged that Trump “is obviously critical of this deployment,” a view the Republican president has voiced since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Back then, Sirakov said, “there was no aggression by the Russian Federation in this form, in this hard and hot form of war. That has changed.”
For Manfred Pischke, 82, a Munich-born US Air Force veteran who settled in Ramstein, the threat of a withdrawal is “serious”. But he shared some sympathy for Trump’s demand that European allies spend more on defense. “If you want something and if you’re friends, you have to pay together and pay the same bill equally,” Pischke said. “Why should American soldiers die for Germans or Italians or French or anybody else, if they don’t pay? It’s American money, American soldiers, American lives.”
– Léa Pernelle and Louis van Boxel-Woolf
© 2024 AFP
