U.K. PM slams Trump remarks on non-U.S. NATO troops in Afghanistan as ‘insulting’ and ‘appalling’

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signalled that U.S. President Donald Trump should apologise for his false assertion that troops from non-U.S. NATO countries avoided the front line during the Afghanistan war, describing Mr. Trump’s remarks as “insulting” and “appalling.”

Mr. Trump said that he wasn’t sure NATO would be there to support the United States if and when requested, provoking outrage and distress across the United Kingdom on Friday (January 23, 2026), regardless of individuals’ political persuasion.

“We’ve never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them,” Mr. Trump said of non-U.S. troops in an interview with Fox News in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday (January 22, 2026). “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.”

In October 2001, nearly a month after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaida, which had used the country as its base, and the group’s Taliban hosts. Alongside the U.S. were troops from dozens of countries, including from NATO, whose mutual-defence mandate had been triggered for the first time after the attacks on New York and Washington.

In the UK, the reaction to Mr. Trump’s comments was raw.

Mr. Starmer paid tribute to the 457 British personnel who died and to those have been left with profound life-long injuries.

“I will never forget their courage, their bravery and the sacrifice they made for their country,” Mr. Starmer said. “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.”

Prince Harry says sacrifices of British soldiers in Afghanistan should be spoken of ‘truthfully’

Without naming Mr. Trump, Prince Harry weighed in to the furor too, saying the “sacrifices” of British soldiers during the war “deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect.”

“Thousands of lives were changed forever,” said Prince Harry, who undertook two tours of duty in Afghanistan in the British Army and who lost friends there. “Mothers and fathers buried sons and daughters. Children were left without a parent. Families are left carrying the cost.”

After 9/11, then Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the U.K. would “stand shoulder to shoulder” with the U.S. in response to the al-Qaida attacks. British troops took a key role in many operations during the Afghan war until their withdrawal in 2014, particularly in Helmand Province in the south of the country. American troops remained in Afghanistan until their chaotic withdrawal in 2021 when the Taliban returned to power.

More than 150,000 British troops served in Afghanistan in the years after the invasion, the largest contingent after the American one.