Ministers defend ‘great sacrifices’ after Trump downplays NATO role in Afghanistan

OTTAWA — Liberal cabinet ministers and former Armed Forces members are defending the sacrifices Canadian soldiers made in Afghanistan after U.S. President Donald Trump downplayed NATO troops’ contributions in the war.

Trump renewed long-standing grievances with NATO partners in a media interview on Thursday by disputing sacrifices made by non-U.S. troops.

“We’ve never needed them, we have never really asked anything of them,” he told Fox News.

“They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that. And they did. They stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”

Culture Minister Marc Miller, who served as a reservist in the Canadian Armed Forces in the 1990s, told reporters at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Quebec City on Friday that Canadians made “great sacrifices” in Afghanistan and everyone knows Trump’s comments are “false.”

Some 40,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces were deployed to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. Veterans Affairs Canada says 158 troops were killed as part of the multilateral operation.

“There was no standing back. Only standing side by side, together on the front lines with our allies,” said Defence Minister David McGuinty in a media statement Friday.

McGuinty said the Canadian Armed Forces were on the ground in Afghanistan from the beginning, and noted Canadian troops led allied efforts including combat operations in Kandahar.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was scheduled to speak to reporters at the close of the two-day cabinet retreat Friday afternoon but left before taking questions from the media. The retreat took place at the Citadelle of Québec, the headquarters of the Royal 22nd Regiment, known as the Van Doos.

Carney’s office said in a media statement Friday evening that having lost 14 of their members in Afghanistan, “the Van Doos are exemplary of the courage, service and sacrifice of Canadians who have worked in close co-ordination with the United States and our NATO allies in support of shared peace and security.”

“This service and their sacrifice can never be diminished,” said the statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. “We remember those brave Canadians and honour the 40,000 Canadian Armed Forces members who served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Friday he considers Trump’s remarks to be “insulting, and frankly, appalling.”

The war in Afghanistan was launched after the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks led the United States to invoke Article 5 of NATO, which states that an attack on one member nation is an attack on all. It remains the only time an ally has asked for support via Article 5.

Trump has routinely talked down the role of NATO in modern geopolitics and questioned whether allies would come to the United States’ aid in a conflict.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said at the cabinet retreat Friday that Canadians are proud of the Armed Forces’ service in Afghanistan.

He said Canadian troops are well-respected among NATO partners and Canada “will continue to be part of multinational forces whenever called upon.”

“We don’t need comments from anyone else to know the strength of our Armed Forces,” Champagne said.

“They know what they did, we know what they did, the world knows what they did.”

Conservative MP Michael Barrett, who also served in the Canadian Armed Forces, noted the number of Canadian troops who served and died alongside U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in a post on social media platform X.

He tagged Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, and the U.S. Consulate office in Toronto in the post with an invitation to come to visit Parliament Hill and read the Books of Remembrance that list every Canadian killed in service to the country.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 23, 2026.

— With files from Catherine Morrison in Quebec City

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press