Trump claim on NATO role in Afghanistan draws UK condemnation

UK politicians person accused Trump of avoiding subject work during the Vietnam War.

United States President Donald Trump has drawn disapproval from British politicians aft claiming that NATO forces stayed distant from the beforehand enactment during the warfare successful Afghanistan.

The US president made the remarks successful an interrogation with Fox News, a US broadcaster, wherever helium again questioned the worth of the subject confederation and suggested that NATO allies would not travel to Washington’s assistance if requested.

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Speaking connected Thursday, Trump said the US had “never needed” NATO and claimed allied forces remained “a small disconnected the beforehand lines” during the Afghanistan conflict.

The comments prompted a backlash crossed the UK governmental spectrum, with critics pointing to the standard of NATO casualties during the 20-year warfare and raising questions astir Trump’s ain subject record.

Allies’ losses

The United Kingdom mislaid 457 work unit successful Afghanistan. More than 150 Canadian soldiers were killed, on with 90 French soldiers. Denmark mislaid 44 soldiers – 1 of the highest per-capita decease rates among NATO members – contempt the state precocious facing continued unit from Trump to merchantability its semi-autonomous territory of Greenland to the US.

Stephen Kinnock, a inferior British minister, described Trump’s remarks arsenic “deeply disappointing” and said European forces had paid a dense terms portion backing US-led operations.

“Many, galore British soldiers and galore soldiers from different European NATO allies gave their lives successful enactment of American-led missions successful places similar Afghanistan and Iraq,” Kinnock told the UK’s Sky News broadcaster connected Friday.

“I deliberation anybody who seeks to criticise what [our equipped forces] person done and the sacrifices that they marque is plainly wrong,” helium added.

‘How situation he’

Kinnock besides noted that the US remains the lone NATO subordinate to person invoked Article 5, the alliance’s collective-defence clause, pursuing the September 11, 2001 attacks, prompting allies to rally down Washington.

He said NATO was the astir palmy planetary information confederation “in the past of the world”, with the US and its European partners, including the UK, playing a cardinal role.

Other UK politicians highlighted Trump’s past of avoiding subject work during the Vietnam War. Trump received aggregate draught deferments, including 1 based connected a diagnosis of bony spurs successful his heels – a aesculapian assertion that has antecedently been questioned.

“Trump avoided subject work 5 times,” Ed Davey, person of the UK’s Liberal Democrats, wrote connected X. “How situation helium question their sacrifice.”