Romania’s talks with the US executive are intensifying ahead of the American elections on 3 November. Elbridge Colby, US under secretary of defense, is expected in Bucharest on Wednesday, 4 November, for discussions on a possible Romanian financial contribution to keeping US troops in the country. Foreign Minister Dan Neculăescu has said he has already made an offer to the American side, without giving figures on cost or on how many soldiers would remain.
Republicans currently hold majorities in both chambers of Congress. Polling suggests Democrats could take the House of Representatives, while the Senate outcome is uncertain. All 435 House seats and 35 of 100 Senate seats are being contested. The brief says that if Democrats controlled Congress they would have three levers also relevant to Romania: the defense authorization law, the budget and investigations, including the Guilfoyle affair. The election can narrow Donald Trump’s room for manoeuvre, but he remains the decision-maker on foreign policy until his term ends in January 2029.
The withdrawal of a US rotational brigade from Romania in October 2025 was criticised by Republican chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, who argued it clashed with White House pressure on Russia. The article says the cut was not blocked by Democrats, and that Trump’s strategy from the outset was one from which Moscow would emerge stronger.
The 2026 US National Defense Authorization Act bars the number of American troops in Europe from falling below 76,000 for more than 45 days without congressional approval. The annual law sets the military budget, defense policy and how the Pentagon may spend funds, including foreign assistance, equipment and pay. The floor applies to Europe as a whole, so it did not stop last year’s brigade withdrawal from Romania. When Trump signed the 2026 law he added a statement contesting limits on his powers as commander-in-chief.
At the end of July, Colby launched a review of the US posture in Europe on the view that the continent should quickly and irreversibly take the main responsibility for conventional defense. NBC has reported one option as withdrawing about a third of the roughly 68,000 US soldiers stationed in Europe. It is unclear whether states that have stayed closely aligned with Washington would be included.
Since May, Trump has promised Poland an extra 5,000 troops. Washington and Warsaw are negotiating a permanent US base, paid entirely from the Polish budget, for 10,000 American personnel. Romania has formally offered to cover the cost of keeping US troops on its territory. Money for co-financing those soldiers may be included in next year’s budget. The plan is to continue work at Mihail Kogălniceanu, with a total investment of 4 billion euros phased through 2040, rather than to build a new American base from scratch.
The article describes the recent relationship as one in which payment brings presence, and says military basing has already entered that pattern. Energy is presented as another possible bargaining chip, including through the Vertical Corridor and the Guilfoyle affair. According to sources cited by The Wall Street Journal, former US ambassador to Athens Kimberly Guilfoyle boasted that Washington can change any government it wants, anywhere, on the model of the fall of the Bolojan cabinet. The piece says a hearing of the former ambassador might expose details of the removal of Ilie Bolojan if Democrats run Congress, while adding that those details are hard to prove.
Critical minerals are also on the agenda. Romania holds deposits of 57 raw materials the United States treats as critical. A technical partnership between Bucharest and Washington covers mapping those deposits, with later American investment in extraction and processing in Romania. A separate project is completion of reactors 3 and 4 at the Cernavodă nuclear plant, valued at more than 7 billion euros, with financial support expected from the US Export-Import Bank. The stated targets are electricity from Unit 3 in 2030 and from Unit 4 in 2031.
If Democrats dominate Congress after the vote, the article says Ukraine would receive needed military aid sooner and investigations of Republican officials would become more effective. Trump’s team is still expected to negotiate with Bucharest the conditions Romania must meet for US troops to stay. The piece asks whether Romania is bargaining over only 1,000 American soldiers while Poland starts from 10,000, attributing the gap to the two economies and to Warsaw’s stronger negotiating position.