The US certainly imposes its will on the rest of the world in many ways, but you're overestimating its power and its interest in imposing its will on Western Europe.

Like many countries, Germany played both sides during the Cold War: https://www.britannica.com/event/Ostpolitik

My humble opinion is that Germany could have evicted the US military from their territory in the 60s, 70s or 80s at the cost of inviting the Soviets in, but judged (correctly, IMO) that the Soviets would treat them worse than the Americans had and would. After all, the Soviets treated their own citizens very badly. The tariffs that Trump imposed on German exports would've never happened during the Cold War. The US security establishment knew (correctly, IMO) that Germany's allying with the Soviets would've been a disaster for US interests because of the possibility of the alliance eventually reaching economic and military parity with the US. (The security establishment would've mobilized influential Senators and Congresspersons to pressure the President to remove the tariffs, and in the unlikely event that that didn't work, they would've taken their case to the American press and the American public.) Consequently, they treated Germany better than the Germans could reasonably expect the Soviets to treat them.

I believe Germany could evict the US military from their territory today, particularly since now that the Soviet Union has disintegrated, the US security establishment doesn't really want to maintain that military presence. They probably think they're maintaining it mainly as a favor to the Europeans and wish the Europeans would bear more of the cost of their own defense. The Europeans, on the other hand, probably reason (correctly, IMO) that having the protection of Western Europe come mostly from the US has the happy effect of reducing the probability of an arms race and consequent war between two European powers. In other words, my belief is that the US doesn't really want to bear the cost of their military presence in Europe, but has (at least before Trump's presidency) grudgingly done so because that is the most effective means of keeping down the probability of another European war.

(I'm not saying that the Europeans are more warlike than the US is -- they are not -- just that the situations of the European governments are much more precarious than the situation of the US government. The US government does not have to consider attacking another country to prevent that country from attacking it first.)

That's one of the selling points for "soft" empires. Even the Mongols played it that way. After the unpleasantness of invasion, anyway.

The Pentagon confirmed this year that they intend to modernize the nuclear weapons stationed in Germany starting in 2021. This does not sound like they don't want to maintain a military presence.