Dutch defence minister Dilan Yesilgöz has called for “cool heads” in the wake of US president Donald Trump’s threat to remove “far more” than 5,000 US soldiers from Germany.

“I think a large part of the US soldiers in Germany will remain,” the minister told current affairs show WNL Op Zondag.

“We need the Americans in Europe and the Americans need these places in Germany, for their own intelligence and their missions closer to Europe, such as in Africa. The dependence comes from both sides.”

Trump said in the wake of a public spat with German chancellor Friedrich Merz that he would remove far more than 5,000 troops from Germany. There are currently some 36,000 US military personnel stationed there.

But Merz at the weekend played down the threat, telling German broadcaster ARD in an interview at the weekend that the troop withdrawal is “not new” and should not be seen as retaliation.

Yesilgöz described the situation in the Middle East as “messy”. “I think everyone can agree with that at the moment,” she said. “It is not clear what the next step is and how we are going to emerge from it.”

“I don’t know what the plan is behind it,” she said. “That makes it more complicated to say that ‘this could be our role to help an ally’.”