You’re wrong, Mr Trump, Nato DID stand by America in its hour of need ... on 9/11

Donald Trump claims Nato countries would not defend America if it came under attack. But Simon Walters points out the only time Nato’s ‘an attack on one is an attack on all’ clause was triggered was in support of the US after the twin towers fell

Of all the false claims made by Donald Trump in his speech at Davos, one stands alone as the most ignorant and shocking.

In his latest broadside against Nato and its key European members including Britain, France and Germany, he complained it was a “one-way street”. The US paid all the bills but had “never gotten anything back”, he said; American soldiers were always ready to take up arms in defence of any Nato country faced with attack, but Nato would never make the same sacrifice for the US in return.

President Trump said: “The problem with Nato is that we’ll be there for them 100 per cent, but I’m not sure they would be there for us if we gave them the call ‘gentlemen, we are being attacked by such and such a nation.’”

He continued: “With all the money we spend, with all the blood, sweat and tears, I don’t know that they’d be there for us. They’re not there for us on Iceland [he meant Greenland] – and Iceland [ditto] has already cost us a lot of money!”

Let’s put to one side his cringeworthy error in confusing Greenland with Iceland: it is dwarfed by his ignorance of Nato’s history. As most people know, it is underpinned by a simple core principle: an attack on one member country is an attack on all.

In such circumstances, under Nato Article 5 all members are required to take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force to restore and maintain security.”

Remarkable though it may seem, given the many global conflicts that have taken place since Nato was set up in 1949, Article 5 has only been triggered once in its 77-year history. And on that occasion, the country for which its members shed “blood, sweat and tears” to defend was none other than America itself.

When it came under fire in the appalling terror attack on New York’s World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, Nato was quick to respond and rally round America. On 12 September, Nato took the historic step of triggering Article 5 to show the US that its allies around the world were ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in responding.

When evidence was found that the 9/11 attack stemmed from Afghanistan, Nato members showed the depth of their commitment to the US. Some 130,000 servicemen and women from no fewer than 25 of Nato’s 32 member states took part in the Afghanistan war over two long, hard-fought decades. And a total of 1,025 of them died in the conflict – in addition to 2,461 from the US and a small number from non-Nato countries. By far the highest number of non-US casualties came from Britain, with 457 deaths.

No one can fault Denmark either – at the centre of the dispute over Mr Trump’s attempt to seize Greenland, under Danish sovereignty – for its efforts in Afghanistan. Although the 43 Danes killed in Afghanistan were fewer than in many bigger nations, it was the second highest as a proportion of its population.

For the benefit of those, who, like Mr Trump, are unaware of the cruel price in human life paid by Nato members who rallied to the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, here is the roll call of those soldiers from non-Nato countries who died, including their home nation: UK 457, Canada 159, France 90, Germany 59, Italy 53, Poland 44, Denmark 43, Spain 35, Romania 27, Netherlands 25, Turkey 15, Czech Republic 14, Norway 10, Estonia 9, Hungary 7, Sweden (which joined Nato in 2024) 5, Latvia 4, Slovakia 3, Finland 2, Portugal 2, Albania 2, Belgium 1, Croatia 1, Lithuania 1, Montenegro 1.

The next time Donald Trump questions whether Britain and other Nato countries would shed “blood, sweat and tears” for the US, perhaps he should be sent the names of all the brave individuals listed above. Armed forces members from many Nato countries were also killed in the Iraq war which, like Afghanistan, was a conflict fought largely at the behest of the US.

However, unlike Afghanistan, there was no specific Nato operation in Iraq: several member states, such as France, refused to take part because of controversy over the case for going to war.

But as with relatives of Nato troops who died in Afghanistan, try telling the loved ones of the 179 British service personnel who died in Iraq that the UK “wasn’t there for them” when the US called to say “gentlemen we are under attack”.