The US announced on Wednesday that it will deploy missiles to Germany that would have been banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019.

“The United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future,” the US and Germany said in a joint statement released amid the ongoing NATO summit in Washington.

the Trump administration tore up the [INF] treaty. It was clear the US exited the treaty so it could deploy intermediate-range missiles near China, leading Russia to propose a moratorium on the deployment of INF missiles in Europe. But the US never accepted the offer.