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Donald Trump has sparked fury by claiming NATO allies' troops "stayed a little back, a little off the front lines" during the Afghanistan war. The US President made the remarks to Fox News on Thursday, dismissing decades of allied sacrifice despite more than 1,000 non-American NATO soldiers dying in the conflict.
Trump questioned whether NATO would support America in a crisis, stating he was "not sure" the alliance would "be there if we ever needed them". He added: "We've never needed them. They'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan … and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines."
The comments follow similar remarks Trump made earlier this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. They come as tensions escalate over Greenland, with Trump pressing NATO allies for greater control over Greenland.
Outrage from UK politicians and veterans
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey condemned Trump's statements on social media, highlighting that the President "avoided military service five times". Davey wrote: "How dare he question their sacrifice. Farage and all the others still fawning over Trump should be ashamed."
Former Conservative defence secretary Ben Wallace, a former officer in the Scots Guards, told The i Paper: "It is sometimes best to keep quiet and let people think you are a fool than open your mouth and confirm it."
Lord Sedwill, former UK ambassador to Afghanistan, told Times Radio that Trump was "simply wrong" and that veterans and families of fallen soldiers would be right to feel deeply offended. Former Tory defence minister Tobias Ellwood called the remarks a "quite shocking rewriting of history designed to re-educate his base that Nato is weak".
The reality: Heavy allied casualties
The facts contradict Trump's claims. Britain lost 457 troops in Afghanistan – the second-highest death toll after the United States. Around 2,000 British military and civilian personnel sustained wounds in action.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte responded to Trump's earlier claims this week, stating: "For every two Americans who paid the ultimate price, there was one soldier from another Nato country who did not come back to his family – from the Netherlands, from Denmark and particularly from other countries."
Denmark lost 44 troops – the highest per capita rate of any coalition nation. Canada suffered 165 deaths during its 12-year deployment, its longest and deadliest combat mission since the Korean War. France lost 90 troops, Germany 62, Italy 53, and Poland 44.
The 20-year conflict killed 2,461 American troops and 1,160 from other allied nations, with allied deaths representing around a third of total coalition deaths.
Bereaved families respond
Lucy Aldridge, whose son Rifleman William Aldridge was killed in 2009 at age 18, told the Mirror she found Trump's remarks "extremely upsetting". William Aldridge was the youngest British soldier to die in Afghanistan, killed just 47 days after his 18th birthday.
Aldridge said: "We live the trauma daily for the rest of our lives because of the contribution that our loved ones made. And they were absolutely on the front line." She described her son's deployment to Sangin in Helmand Province, where troops patrolled Pharmacy Road during 2009-2010 – "the worst years for casualties for allied forces because it was the singularly most dangerous place in the world at the time".
Retired army Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon criticized Trump's "complete ignorance" of the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He noted it was the UK who answered the US call after 9/11 and took on "the most difficult area of Afghanistan" in Helmand Province.
Former US Army General Ben Hodges, who commanded US forces in Europe, told Times Radio he was "about as angry as I've been in quite some time". He described the comments as "sickening", adding: "There's no American soldier that believes what our president just said, and I am sorry that he did that."
NATO Article 5: America's call for help
The Afghanistan deployment followed NATO's only-ever invocation of Article 5 – the alliance's mutual defense clause. America triggered it after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, requiring member states to help defend the attacked country.
By 2011, NATO deployed more than 36,000 troops from member states in Afghanistan, including around 9,500 British personnel. The coalition forces withdrew in 2021 after two decades of combat.
Rutte assured Trump this week: "You can be assured, absolutely, if ever the United States was under attack, your allies will be with you. There is an absolute guarantee."
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
