US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was planning to head to Brussels last month to deliver what would be a bombshell announcement in a meeting with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) top military chiefs, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports.

The US, he planned to say, was preparing additional cuts to its forces in Europe that would go beyond the canceled deployment of an armored brigade to Poland and the earlier withdrawal of an infantry brigade from Romania, people familiar with the matter said. But Hegseth’s proposal was nixed after it was shared with Marco Rubio—President Trump’s national-security adviser—and other senior officials, the people said.

Instead, Hegseth announced that the US would review its military positioning in Europe, which could take up to six months.

This episode showed that the US administration has not yet decided on the scale and timeframe of a possible reduction in its military presence in Europe.

WSJ sources noted that the Pentagon chief’s proposals have raised concerns among Washington’s NATO allies, as well as a number of American lawmakers, including Republicans. All of them fear that the alliance will weaken.