LONDON — Britons including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Prince Harry and grieving parents of soldiers killed in action reacted with fury Friday to President Donald Trump’s inaccurate belittling of the role British troops played in the Afghanistan war.
Harry, a former army helicopter pilot, rebuked Trump for disrespecting fallen soldiers. Starmer called the president’s remarks “insulting and frankly appalling.”
In an interview with Fox News from Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Trump repeated his assertion that NATO allies would not defend the United States if called upon, despite the fact that the only time the alliance invoked its mutual-defense provision was in support of the U.S. following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The president waved away the role that tens of thousands of troops from NATO countries played in Afghanistan, including 457 British personnel who were killed there, second only to U.S. casualties.
“We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them,” Trump said in the interview. “You know, they’ll 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.”
Trump’s dismissiveness echoed his insulting of Gold Star families of fallen soldiers in the U.S. during his first presidential campaign and his chiding of John McCain for being captured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Following weeks of grinding tensions over Trump’s demands to acquire Greenland and his scornful criticism of European allies in Davos, the inaccurate description of soldiers staying back generated anger across Britain’s political spectrum.
Speaking at Downing Street, Starmer unleashed his strongest rebuke of Trump yet after a year of trying to delicately defuse the president’s outbursts on trade, Ukraine, Greenland and other upheavals in transatlantic relations.
“I will never forget their courage, their bravery and the sacrifice they made for their country,” Starmer said. “There were many also who were injured, some with life-changing injuries. I consider President Trump’s 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.”
Asked whether Trump should apologize, Starmer replied pointedly: “If I had misspoken in that way or said those words, I would certainly apologize.”
Harry, who served two frontline tours in Afghanistan as an Army Air Corps co-pilot gunner, issued a statement without naming Trump directly but making clear his target.
“In 2001, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first — and only — time in history,” Harry said. “It meant that every allied nation was obliged to stand with the United States in Afghanistan, in pursuit of our shared security. Allies answered that call. I served there. I made lifelong friends there. And I lost friends there. The United Kingdom alone had 457 service personnel killed. Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect, as we all remain united and loyal to the defense of diplomacy and peace.”
The controversy seemed to erupt from a buildup of contained frustration over Trump’s increasingly angry rhetoric toward European allies. At Davos, Trump described NATO as a financial burden that offered America nothing in return, claiming “we never asked for anything, and we never got anything.” He repeatedly insisted the U.S. must take control of Greenland, calling it “our territory” despite Danish sovereignty over the autonomous region, and he threatened punitive tariffs against European nations opposing his ambitions.
He abruptly backed off Thursday, posting that he had reached the “framework” of a long-term agreement for greater U.S. military and economic activity in Greenland. But the episode left European leaders in greater doubt than ever about Trump’s commitments to the transatlantic relationship. He continued to disparage the alliance in a string of interviews, including in his comments to Fox.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch called Trump’s remarks “flat-out nonsense,” saying that “British, Canadian, and NATO troops fought and died alongside the US for 20 years. This is a fact, not opinion. Their sacrifice deserves respect, not denigration.” Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader and longtime Trump ally, wrote on social media: “Donald Trump is wrong.”
British veterans and military families expressed dismay at Trump’s characterization. Diane Dernie, whose son Ben Parkinson suffered catastrophic injuries when his Land Rover struck a mine in Helmand province in 2006, called Trump’s comments “the ultimate insult.”
Lucy Aldridge, mother of 18-year-old Rifleman William Aldridge, who was killed in a 2009 bomb blast, told the BBC she was “deeply disgusted” by the remarks. “Families of those who were lost to that conflict live the trauma every day,” Aldridge said. “This isn’t just misspeaking, he has deeply offended — I can imagine — every NATO member who sent troops to fight in Afghanistan and certainly the families of those who never came home.”
The latest controversy follows a pattern of Trump making disparaging remarks about fallen service members and their families. In 2020 Trump reportedly called dead American soldiers buried at a U.S. military cemetery in France “losers” and referred to Marines killed at Belleau Wood as “suckers” — allegations later confirmed by his former chief of staff John F. Kelly. Trump has denied these reports.
Eleven Gold Star families demanded an apology during the 2016 presidential campaign after Trump attacked Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Gold Star parents whose son was killed in Iraq, calling Trump’s remarks “repugnant” and “personally offensive.”
Online forums and social media channels favored by former service members pulsed with a sense of betrayal and frustration. “Has he forgotten the Helmand Province?” one Reddit user wrote, referring to one of the war’s toughest theaters and pointing to Britain’s high casualty rate. “We conducted sustained frontline combat operations alongside the U.S. forces.”
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