Riley noted this in the OP too, but worth reemphasizing:
If he were relocating the troops to Poland, which was what I remember originally reading about, it would have 1) made sense in terms of his fixation on the 2% thing since Poland is hitting that target and 2) actually made some strategic sense, given that one of the points of having troops in Europe is to make sure Russia doesn't get any ideas, and Poland is closer to that front than Germany is.