President Donald Trump faced a quick condemnation after questioning whether the NATO alliance would come to America’s aid during a time of need, even though the only time the alliance’s vital Article 5 was ever invoked was in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“I’ve always said, ‘Will they be there, if we ever needed them?’ And that’s really the ultimate test,” Trump said Thursday in an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland. “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?”
Article 5 of the NATO charter calls for every member to consider an attack on one of them to be an attack on all of them and if invoked, triggers an obligation for each member to come to the attacked member’s assistance.
The only time it’s been invoked since the alliance’s founding in 1949, a couple of years after the end of World War II, was on September 12, 2001, and several NATO countries ultimately sent troops to fight alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them,” Trump added, downplaying their contributions. “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.”
His comments sparked criticism from European officials and veterans who served alongside U.S. forces.
“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,” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Friday.
Starmer further suggested an apology from Trump to the families of British veterans would be warranted.
“NATO’s Article 5 has only been triggered once. The U.K. and NATO allies answered the U.S. call. And more than 450 British personnel lost their lives in Afghanistan,” U.K. member of Parliament and Defense Secretary John Healey said on social media. “Those British troops should be remembered for who they were: heroes who gave their lives in service of our nation.”
American troops accounted for most of the casualties during the Global War on Terror, though some European countries had similar numbers of casualties on a per capita basis.
“If you ask if allies will be there for the U.S., they already have. When [America] came under a horrific terrorist attack on 9/11, #NATO’s Article 5 was triggered for the 1st & only time. Tens of thousands of allied troops went to Afghanistan to fight, and many died, alongside Americans,” Oana Lungescu, who served as the principal NATO spokesperson for more than a decade, said.
Around 3,500 allied troops died in the war in Afghanistan, 2,456 of whom were Americans and 457 were British. Denmark, which has been at the forefront of Trump’s pressure campaign regarding Greenland, had one of the highest per capita death rates among allied countries during the conflict.
GREENLAND OFF-RAMP IS TRUMP’S LATEST NATO DE-ESCALATION
Catherine Vautrin, France’s Minister of the Armed Forces, said, “In Afghanistan, France committed itself from 2001 alongside its European and Canadian NATO allies, following the activation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty by the United States. 90 French soldiers died there on operations and many others were wounded. We remember their sacrifice, which commands respect.”
Retired U.S. Adm. James Stavridis, who served as the Supreme Allied Commander at NATO from 2009 to 2013, noted that “hundreds of NATO troops died under my command on the front lines in Afghanistan,” while career U.S. diplomat Nicolas Burns called the president’s remarks “shameful.”
The president has long had a tenuous relationship with the NATO alliance dating back to his first term, and the tension was visible this week during the Davos World Economic Forum, where the primary subject of discussion centered on his demands to acquire Greenland.
