Trump claims NATO troops are avoiding front lines in Afghanistan, sparking outrage

Donald Trump has sparked fresh anger in Britain by saying Nato troops are “a little bit further away from the front lines” during the war in Afghanistan.

Labor MP Emily Thornberry, chair of the foreign affairs committee, called it an “absolute insult” to the 457 British servicemen killed in the conflict, while Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: “How dare he question their sacrifice?”

“It saddens me to see the sacrifice of our country and our NATO partners so cheaply,” said Conservative MP Ben Obose-Jetti, who served in Afghanistan.

Britain has been one of several allies to join the United States in Afghanistan since 2001, invoking NATO’s collective security provisions after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The US president told Fox News on Thursday that he was “not sure” whether the military alliance would provide support to the United States “if we needed it.”

“We never needed them,” he said, adding: “We never really asked them for anything.”

“They will say they sent some troops to Afghanistan,” he said. “And they did, they stayed behind, away from the front lines.”

The United States has been “very good to Europe and many other countries,” he said, adding: “This has to be a two-way street.”

Thornberry told BBC Question Time the comments were “not just a mistake”.

“It’s an absolute insult… How dare he say we’re not on the front line, how dare he?

“Whenever the American people need us, we are always there,” she said, calling Trump “a man who has never seen any action” but is now “the commander-in-chief who has no idea how America is defended.”

She said the United States was a “friend” of the UK but its leaders “behaved in a way that was bullying, rude and deliberately trying to weaken us, while the UK has been trying to weaken Nato”.

Speaking on the same programme, Conservative shadow cabinet member Stuart Andrew also called the comments “disgraceful” and “shocking”.

“There are many people in this country who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many of them have lost their lives, but many more have come back with life-changing injuries, and we owe them our gratitude.”

He added that the special relationship between the UK and the US was important for both defense and security, and in recent weeks Trump had turned the focus of conversations to security in the Arctic – where he said there were “very serious threats”.

Sir Ed wrote on social media that Trump was “avoiding military service”, adding: “How dare he question their sacrifice?”

In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Dutch Foreign Minister David van Wel dismissed Trump’s comments as “false” and said “Europeans are bleeding to support American troops in Afghanistan.”

He said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte dismissed similar comments made by Trump earlier during a joint news conference in Davos on Thursday.

Asked about the US president repeating the claim, Van Wel said: “We should speak out for the truth like Mark Rutte did. If he repeats it, we need to repeat it again because that’s not how history works.”

Meanwhile, former British Army officer Obers-Jackty said it was “sad to see the sacrifices of our country and those of our NATO partners being treated so cheaply by the president of the United States.”

“I have seen firsthand the sacrifices made by British soldiers,” he wrote on the X.

“I do not believe U.S. military personnel share President Trump’s views; his words are damaging to them as our closest military allies.”

Labor MP Calvin Bailey, a former RAF officer who served with US Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan, said the president’s claims “bear no resemblance to the reality experienced by those of us who served there”.

“As I reminded the U.S. troops I serve with on July 4, 2008, we are there because of a shared belief articulated at the founding of the United States that free people have inalienable rights and should not live under tyranny,” he told the PA news agency.

“This belief underpinned the response to 9/11 and is worth reflecting on now.”

The BBC contacted the Ministry of Defense for comment.

A spokesman noted that Defense Secretary John Healey made the comments on Wednesday during a visit to NATO ally Denmark ahead of Trump’s comments.

“In Afghanistan, our troops trained together, fought together, and in some cases died together, making the ultimate sacrifice,” he said.

The United States invaded in October 2001 and ousted the Taliban, which it said was harboring Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda figures linked to the 9/11 attacks. NATO countries provided troops and military equipment to the U.S.-led war.

By the time the United States withdrew from the country in 2021, more than 3,500 coalition troops had died, about two-thirds of them Americans.

Britain had the second-highest number of military deaths in the conflict, after the United States (2,461 killed).

The United States is the only country to invoke NATO’s Article 5 collective security clause, which states that “an armed attack against one NATO Member shall be considered an attack against all NATO Members.”