Trump heaps praise on UK troops following furor over Afghanistan comments

LONDON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump heaped praise Saturday on British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, in a post on social media that represented a partial reversal of comments he made this week that drew a cascade of criticism in the U.K., particularly from families of those killed and seriously injured in the conflict.

In the wake of a conversation earlier with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump said on Truth Social that the “great and very brave soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America.”

He described the 457 British servicemen and women who died in Afghanistan and those that were badly injured, as “among the greatest of all warriors.”

Trump added that the bond between the two countries' militaries is “too strong to ever be broken” and that the U.K. “with tremendous heart and soul, is second to none (except for the USA)."

Trump's comments follow an interview with Fox Business Network on Thursday in Davos, Switzerland, when he said he wasn’t sure the other 31 nations in NATO would be there to support the United States if and when requested and that troops from those countries stayed "a little off the front lines.”

Trump did not apologize directly for those comments, nor retract them, as Starmer had suggested in his initial response on Friday when he described the words of the president as “insulting and frankly appalling.”

Starmer's office in No. 10 Downing Street said the issue was raised in a conversation between the pair on Saturday, in which other topics were discussed, including 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.”

Trump's view as expressed in the Fox Business interview stands at odds with the reality that in October 2001, nearly a month after the 9/11 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-defense mandate had been triggered for the first time after the attacks on New York and Washington. More than 150,000 British troops served in Afghanistan in the years after the invasion, the largest contingent after the American one.

The Italian and French governments also expressed their disapproval Saturday at Trump’s comments, with both describing them as “unacceptable.”