Updated January 24, 2026 — 7:14am, first published 5:54am
London: US President Donald Trump has provoked fury from war veterans and political leaders by claiming that allied troops “stayed a little back” from fighting alongside American soldiers in the war in Afghanistan, with Prince Harry joining the condemnation.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Trump should apologise for the remark – a stance backed by conservative political leaders – and the families of those who served denounced the US president for what they called a “disgraceful” slur on the veterans.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has had a good relationship with US President Donald Trump over the past year, said he should apologise for his remarks. AP The uproar dominated British media on Friday (Saturday AEDT) and spread to France and other US allies as veterans learned of Trump’s remarks in an interview with Fox News on Thursday when he questioned the NATO pact and belittled the contribution of allied forces.
“We get along very well with NATO, I think, but I’ve always said will they be there if we ever needed them, and that’s really the ultimate test. And I’m not sure of that,” he said in an interview with Fox News at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“We’ve never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them.
“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… But we’ve been very good to Europe and many other countries.”
The comments repeated Trump’s complai
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