{"id":537914,"date":"2026-01-23T21:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/537914\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T21:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:30:11","slug":"trump-downplaying-natos-afghanistan-involvement-causes-distress-in-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/537914\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump downplaying NATO’s Afghanistan involvement causes distress in UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signaled that U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> should apologize for his false assertion that troops from non-U.S. NATO countries avoided the front line during the Afghanistan war, describing Trump\u2019s remarks as \u201cinsulting\u201d and \u201cappalling.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump said that he wasn\u2019t sure NATO would be there to support the United States if and when requested, provoking outrage and distress across the United Kingdom on Friday, regardless of individuals\u2019 political persuasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them,\u201d Trump said of non-US troops in an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. \u201cYou know, they\u2019ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October 2001, nearly a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaida, which had used the country as its base, and the group\u2019s Taliban hosts. Alongside the U.S. were troops from dozens of countries, including from NATO, whose mutual-defense mandate had been triggered for the first time after the attacks on New York and Washington.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: UK\u2019s Starmer slams Trump remarks on non-US NATO troops in Afghanistan as \u2018insulting\u2019 and \u2018appalling\u2019\n <\/p>\n

AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s response to President Trump downplaying NATO actions in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

UK sacrifice<\/p>\n

In the U.K., the reaction to Trump\u2019s comments was raw.<\/p>\n

Starmer paid tribute to the 457 British personnel who died and to those have been left with profound life-long injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will never forget their courage, their bravery and the sacrifice they made for their country,\u201d Starmer said. \u201cI consider President Trump\u2019s remarks to be insulting and frankly appalling and I am not surprised they have caused such hurt to the loved ones of those who were killed or injured and, in fact, across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without naming Trump, Prince Harry weighed in to the furor too, saying the \u201csacrifices\u201d of British soldiers during the war \u201cdeserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThousands of lives were changed forever,\u201d said Harry, who undertook two tours of duty in Afghanistan in the British Army and who lost friends there. \u201cMothers and fathers buried sons and daughters. Children were left without a parent. Families are left carrying the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

After 9\/11, then Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the U.K. would \u201cstand shoulder to shoulder\u201d with the U.S. in response to the al-Qaida attacks. British troops took a key role in many operations during the Afghan war until their withdrawal in 2014, particularly in Helmand Province in the south of the country. American troops remained in Afghanistan until their chaotic withdrawal in 2021<\/a> when the Taliban returned to power.<\/p>\n

More than 150,000 British troops served in Afghanistan<\/a> in the years after the invasion, the largest contingent after the American one. <\/p>\n

Ben Obese-Jecty, a lawmaker who served in Afghanistan as a captain in the Royal Yorkshire Regiment, said that it was \u201csad to see our nation\u2019s sacrifice, and that of our NATO partners, held so cheaply by the president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and Vietnam<\/p>\n

Anger was further fueled by the fact that the comments came from someone who didn\u2019t serve in the Vietnam War at a time when he was eligible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hugely ironic that someone who allegedly dodged the draft for the Vietnam War should make such a disgraceful statement,\u201d said Stephen Stewart, author of \u201cThe Accidental Soldier,\u201d an account of his time embedded with British troops in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Trump received a deferment that allowed him to not serve in Vietnam because of bone spurs, but he has been unable to remember in which foot, leading to accusations of draft dodging.<\/p>\n

Repeated NATO slights<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the first time that Trump downplayed the commitment of NATO countries over the past few days. It has been one of his pivotal lines of attack as he escalated his threats to seize Greenland<\/a>, a semiautonomous territory belonging to Denmark. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s allegation that NATO countries won\u2019t be there when requested stands in stark contrast to reality. <\/p>\n

The only time Article 5 of NATO\u2019s founding treaty<\/a> has been used was in response to the 9\/11 attacks on the U.S. The article is the key mutual defense clause, obliging all member countries to come to the aid of another member whose sovereignty or territorial integrity might be under threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen America needed us after 9\/11 we were there,\u201d former Danish platoon commander Martin Tamm Andersen said.<\/p>\n

Denmark has been a stalwart ally of the U.S.<\/a> in Afghanistan, with 44 Danish soldiers killed there \u2014 the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces. Eight more died in Iraq.<\/p>\n

The latest controversy surrounding Trump comes at the end of a week when he has faced criticism \u2014 and pushback \u2014 for his threats to Greenland. <\/p>\n

Trump also threatened to slap tariffs on European nations opposed to his ambitions to annex Greenland, which raised questions over the future of NATO. And though Trump backed down<\/a> after a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in which he said they formed the \u201cframework\u201d for a deal over Arctic security, trans-Atlantic relations have taken a hit. <\/p>\n

His latest comments are unlikely to improve relations.<\/p>\n

Diane Dernie, whose son Ben Parkinson suffered horrific injuries when a British Army Land Rover hit a mine in Afghanistan in 2006, said that Trump\u2019s latest comments were \u201cthe ultimate insult\u201d and called on Starmer to stand up to Trump over them.<\/p>\n

\u201cCall him out,\u201d she said. \u201cMake a stand for those who fought for this country and for our flag, because it\u2019s just beyond belief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking her up on that, Starmer said \u201cwhat I say to Diane is, if I had misspoken in that way or said those words, I would certainly apologize and I\u2019d apologize to her.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Anders Kongshaug contributed to this report from Copenhagen, Denmark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signaled that U.S. President Donald Trump should apologize for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":537915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[7574,237705,237704,237707,69,57,3464,17723,8955,237703,108029,8959,50,8961,80,9342,235115,15125,237706,39526,376,4338,67,370,132,68,96,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-537914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-afghanistan","10":"tag-ben-obese-jecty","11":"tag-ben-parkinson","12":"tag-diane-dernie","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-international-agreements","16":"tag-keir-starmer","17":"tag-mark-rutte","18":"tag-martin-tamm-andersen","19":"tag-military-occupations","20":"tag-nato","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organization","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-prince-harry","25":"tag-send-to-apple-news","26":"tag-september-11-attacks","27":"tag-stephen-stewart","28":"tag-tony-blair","29":"tag-united-kingdom","30":"tag-united-kingdom-government","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-united-states-government","33":"tag-unitedstates","34":"tag-us","35":"tag-war-and-unrest","36":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}