LONDON: US President Donald Trump on Saturday (Jan 24) praised “brave” British soldiers, calling them warriors, a day after remarks he made about NATO troops in Afghanistan were described as “insulting and appalling” by Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Trump provoked widespread anger in Britain and across Europe after he said European troops had stayed off the front lines in Afghanistan.
Britain lost 457 service personnel killed in Afghanistan, its deadliest overseas war since the 1950s. For several of the war’s most intense years, it led the allied campaign in Helmand, Afghanistan’s biggest and most violent province, while also fighting as the main U.S. battlefield ally in Iraq.
“The GREAT and very BRAVE soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “In Afghanistan, 457 died, many were badly injured, and they were among the greatest of all warriors. It’s a bond too strong to ever be broken.”
Trump’s initial comments had provoked an unusually strong reaction from Starmer, who has tended to avoid direct criticism of Trump in public.