Trump’s criticism of NATO sparked a Danish veteran protest outside the US Embassy in Denmark

The group was protesting against the president Donald TrumpTrump’s push for the US to take Greenland from Denmark and his remarks in Davos that NATO forces “backed off a little bit” when they fought alongside the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“They have a feeling that they have been betrayed,” Carsten Rasmussen, president of the Danish Veterans Association, told the Associated Press. “Naturally, they’re angry about this. They spread out. They fought with the Americans. They fought with the British. They fought together. They bled together. And as you heard here in front of the American embassy today, 52 of them never came back.”

Forty-four Danish soldiers died in Afghanistan, the highest death toll per capita of any NATO country in the war, and eight others died in Iraq. Denmark’s population as of 2025 was just over 6 million.

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Demonstrators in front of the US Embassy in Copenhagen on Saturday. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

During the protest, demonstrators raised 52 flags bearing the names of martyrs in front of the embassy.

“Behind all these flags, there is a man, there is a soldier, there is a young man,” Lieutenant Colonel Niels Christian Koevoed, a Dane who served in Afghanistan, told Reuters.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described Trump’s comments about staying “short” as “insulting and frankly appalling,” which Trump wrote on the website Truth Social: “The… Great and very brave soldiers The UK will always be with the USA!”

But he did not acknowledge the sacrifices of others NATO forces.

“Denmark has always stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States — and we have shown up in crisis areas of the world when the United States has asked us to,” the Danish Veterans and Veterans Support Group, which organized the protest, said in a statement. “We are frustrated and ridiculed by the Trump administration, which is deliberately ignoring the fight in Denmark alongside the USA.”

Hundreds of Danish war veterans and other demonstrators demonstrated in front of the US Embassy in Copenhagen on Saturday. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

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The group added: “Words cannot describe how painful it is to forget Denmark’s contributions and sacrifices in the fight for democracy, peace and freedom in the world.” The white house“.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.

On Greenland Earlier this month, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker told Fox News Digital that NATO has a “tendency to overreact.”

Greenland’s importance has been clear for years, Whittaker said, because as the ice melts, it reshapes the Arctic and opens new routes. “Security in the Far North, which I talked about a lot before this happened, is the most important issue,” he said. “As the ice melts and as roads open in the Arctic, so does the security of the Arctic Greenland securitywhich is the northern side of the continental United States, is crucial.”

The demonstrators felt “offended” by President Donald Trump’s statement that NATO forces remained “a little” in Afghanistan and Iraq. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

He stressed that Greenland’s location makes it central to American defense planning. “If you think of Greenland as part of access to maritime assets, surveillance, awareness and fortification of that part of the Western Hemisphere is critical to the long-term security of the United States,” Whitaker said.

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He said recent diplomacy shows that the issue can be addressed without escalation. “I know that too A successful meeting occurred between “The Danes, Greenland, Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio, so I think it will be constructive.”