President Trump heaped praise Saturday on British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, in a post on social media that represented a partial reversal of disparaging comments he made this week that drew a cascade of criticism in the UK, particularly from families of those killed and seriously injured in the fighting. In a Truth Social post, Trump described the 457 British servicemen and women who died in Afghanistan and those who were badly injured as "among the greatest of all warriors," the AP reports. The "great and very brave soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America," he wrote.
Trump had said in an interview with Fox Business Network on Thursday that he wasn't sure the other 31 nations in NATO would be there to support the US and that troops from those countries had stayed "a little off the front lines" in Afghanistan. He did not apologize directly for those comments, nor retract them, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer had suggested. The prime minister's office said the issue was raised in a conversation between the pair on Saturday that included the war in Ukraine and security in the Arctic region.
"The prime minister raised the brave and heroic British and American soldiers who fought side by side in Afghanistan, many of whom never returned home," Downing Street said in a statement. "We must never forget their sacrifice." The record disproves Trump's contention, and the Italian and French governments also expressed their disapproval Saturday. Trump added in his post that the bond between the British and US militaries is "too strong to ever be broken" and that the UK "with tremendous heart and soul, is second to none (except for the USA)."
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