Prince Harry and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday criticized President Donald Trump after he claimed NATO allies were “a little off the front lines” during combat operations in Afghanistan.
Harry, who served as a British Army captain and completed two deployments to Afghanistan in 2008 and 2012, issued a statement emphasizing the sacrifices made by U.S. allies after NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in its history following the Sept. 11 attacks.
“When NATO called, America’s allies answered,” Harry said. “I served there. I made lifelong friends there. And I lost friends there. The United Kingdom alone had 457 service personnel killed.”
“Thousands of lives were changed forever. Parents buried sons and daughters. Children grew up without a parent. Families still carry that cost,” he added. “Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect, as we remain united in the defense of diplomacy and peace.”
Harry’s remarks followed Trump’s comments in an interview with Fox News in Davos, Switzerland, where the president again downplayed NATO’s role in the Afghanistan war amid broader tensions with the alliance over his push to acquire Greenland.
“We never needed them,” Trump said. “We have never really asked anything of them. They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan — and they did — but they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
Responding to international criticism, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement: “President Trump is absolutely right — the United States of America has done more for NATO than any other country in the alliance combined.”
According to icasualties.org, more than 3,500 NATO troops were killed in Afghanistan. Nearly 2,500 of those deaths were U.S. service members, with thousands more wounded.
However, allied nations sustained significant losses relative to their population size. Britain, with about one-fifth of the U.S. population, lost 457 troops. Denmark, whose population is roughly 2% of the U.S., reported 44 military fatalities.
