US President Donald Trump has once again hit out at the UK and the role it played during the war with Iran, saying the response London gave to his administration over supporting it during the conflict was “not in the spirit of Churchill”. Mr Trump’s words came during the NATO summit in Turkey, when a journalist asked him if the US would step in to help a NATO country under attack.
He said: “Spain has been very bad, Italy has been good, almost all of the countries have been good, they just had a bad moment. They didn’t help us – we didn’t need their help.” He went on to claim to have been told by an unnamed nations they’d prefer to remain on the sidelines had he asked for support in the US military campaign against Iran. After saying he “didn’t like that answer”, he went on to claim: “The UK gave an answer which was sort of weird. I said, ‘would you like to help?’ They said ‘we do, but we want to wait until the war is over’. This was not in the spirit of Winston Churchill.”
Despite the apparent criticism of Western allies, Mr Trump appeared to back the NATO alliance, saying: “If there’s one word that comes out today is ‘unification’. I’ve never seen anything like it. Every one of those countries, they love us, they love each other. That was tremendous unification.”
Mr Trump didn’t directly answer the question posed by the journalist over the US defending NATO allies in case of an attack.
Weeks before the summit, Mr Trump had again lashed out at the UK’s initial refusal to allow Washington to use British bases to launch strikes against Iran at the beginning of the war.
In March, Mr Trump claimed Prime Minister Keir Starmer had taken “far too long” to allow US forces to use British airbases.
He had previously also said, “this is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
Earlier this year, Mr Trump had also said he was “not happy” with the UK’s response to the Iran conflict. Back in March, the US President lashed out after Mr Starmer insisted Britain “won’t be drawn into the wider war” as he came under pressure to send Royal Navy ships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
During the latest NATO summit, Mr Trump reignited the US claim over Greenland, the sovereignty of which belongs to NATO ally Denmark.
Mr Stamer, who likely attended his last major international event as Prime Minister, said NATO is “stronger and more united” coming out of the Ankara summit. The Prime Minister said leaders “achieved what we wanted to achieve, which is unity”.
NATO leaders discussed defence investments, defence industry, and support for Ukraine. Progress towards reaching NATO’s historic 5% defence investment plan was a key topic.
“The task ahead is clear: to turn Allied commitments into concrete results. Increased investment, industrial production and continued support for Ukraine. All of this contributes to a stronger NATO and greater security for all of us,” Secretary General Mark Rutte said.