Europe
Lithuania ready to pay for a permanent US base; Trump: “We will certainly look at it”
Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said on October 6 that Vilnius is ready to cover the cost of a permanent US military presence, a day after Donald Trump said he would consider the request.
Lithuania is ready to cover the cost of establishing a permanent US military base on its territory, Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said on Tuesday, October 6. His remarks came a day after US President Donald Trump said he would consider Vilnius’s request.
“We will certainly look at it. I know so many people in Lithuania. They are great people,” Trump said on Monday, October 5, in Washington, answering a question from a correspondent of Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT.
“All our partners need to do is make the political decision on permanently deploying troops, and Lithuania is ready to cover the related financial costs,” Sinkevičius wrote on Facebook, describing the US presence as a “critically important deterrent and security guarantee”. The prime minister had proposed turning the current presence into a permanent one to Trump’s envoy John Cole, at a meeting in Vilnius last month. Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas thanked the US president for his “truly rational and objective approach to Lithuania” and said he would work to advance the proposal.
The United States has kept an armoured battalion of nearly 1,000 troops in Lithuania since 2019, with units rotating in and out. Lithuania, a member of the EU and NATO, borders Russia and Belarus.
The request comes as Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has said that US forces in Europe will be moved to the United States or the Western Hemisphere. This week, Lithuania’s parliament also voted in a first reading to lift the constitutional ban on nuclear weapons and foreign bases; Geopolitiki has the details of that vote.
