Trump Accuses NATO Allies Of 'Staying Back', Avoiding Afghanistan Frontline

US President Donald Trump claimed that NATO troops "stayed a little back" from the frontlines in Afghanistan. He questioned whether NATO would "be there" if the United States "ever needed them."

Speaking to Fox News in Davos, Trump asked, "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. I know that we would have been there, or we would be there, but will they be there?"

After the 9/11 attacks, the US was the first NATO member nation to invoke Article 5, which states that an attack against one member is an attack on all. NATO allies fought alongside the US in Afghanistan for 20 years, but Trump has repeatedly been dismissive of it.

"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," he asserted.

3,486 troops from NATO died during the 20-year-long war, of which 2,461 were American military personnel. Canada and Greenland witnessed 165 and 44 deaths. 

Backlash From UK MPs

His remarks have provoked outrage among UK Members of Parliament, with UK PM Keir Starmer's spokesman saying, "Their sacrifice and that of other NATO forces was made in the service of collective security and in response to an attack on our ally."

"We are incredibly proud of our armed forces, and their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten," he added.  

"It's an absolute insult. It's an insult to 457 families who lost someone in Afghanistan. How dare he say we weren't on the front line?" Emily Thornberry, chair of parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, told the BBC.

"The UK and NATO allies answered the US call. And more than 450 British personnel lost their lives in Afghanistan," UK's Defence Minister John Healey said.

According to official UK figures, 405 of the 457 British casualties who died in Afghanistan were killed in hostile military action.

The US is the only country to have invoked Article 5 of NATO after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001.

Trump has also been criticised for avoiding conscription for the Vietnam War. He claimed that he was diagnosed with bone spurs in his heels. He told the New York Times that the bone spurs were "not a big problem, but it was enough of a problem".