United States President Donald Trump said Washington is considering establishing a permanent military base in Lithuania, prompting the Baltic nation's government to offer to cover the associated costs.
Speaking to reporters in Washington on Monday, Donald Trump said that the United States would certainly look into setting up a permanent military facility in the country. He described Lithuanians as great people and noted that he knows many people in the nation. Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT was the first media outlet to report the American president's comments.
A few hours after the president spoke, Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius wrote on social media that Lithuania is willing to cover the relevant costs for the creation of a permanent American base, according to Bloomberg. The prime minister's statement echoed comments he made the previous week in an interview with Bloomberg TV, when he stated that Lithuania was ready to pay the bill to host US forces.
Funding offer and military posture
American troops have maintained rotational deployments in Lithuania since 2014, with forces typically numbering about 1,000 soldiers. That presence was scaled back this summer when Washington initiated a broader review of its military posture across Europe.
Lithuania is a Baltic state in Northeastern Europe that shares borders with Poland, Latvia, Belarus, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. A former Soviet republic, the country joined NATO and the European Union in 2004 to secure its defense and integrate with Western institutions.
Last month, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda stated that two battalions were heading to the country. He noted that the movement of those units would restore the American military presence to levels seen in recent years.
Strategic shift in the Baltic region
Establishing a permanent American base in Lithuania would represent a major shift from the rotational deployment model that has defined the US military presence in the Baltic states. NATO began reinforcing its eastern flank following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
NATO, officially the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, operates as an international military alliance providing collective defense for its member states. Crimea is a Black Sea peninsula annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014, an event that led NATO to step up security measures along its eastern borders.
Donald Trump's comments about Lithuania come as the US president also cited significant progress in plans to create a new US Army base in neighbouring Poland.
Poland is a Central European country and fellow NATO member that borders Lithuania to the southwest.
