Why do you keep bringing up Germany?
He was talking about NATO as a whole - why do British deaths mean nothing to you in your pursuit of defending Trump?
"If he is talking about the UK, or Canada, then its a slap in the face, if however he is talking Germany, well then he has a point no?"
You understand these countries contribute to NATO and the Afghan war triggered article 5, for the first ever time, and the response from a lot of NATO contributors was hardly in the nature of it. At the time US senetors and congress were unhappy with Germany shying away from front line and dangerous action.
The UK, Canada and other NATO nations in my opinion reacted appropriately (even if i disagreed with it), however Germany did not respond the same did they, as did other european NATO allies.
The criticism of that at the time is that some Eruopean nations weakened NATO, werent as commited to the ethos of article 5, and calls for NATOs resrructure even happened if i remember rightly.
So ive gone and found the quote in full context, the question asked of him was "do you think NaTo allies would be there for the US if it was attacked?"
The response being:
“We’ve never needed them… They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan … and they did — they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines. But we’ve been very good to Europe and many other countries… It has to be a two‑way street.”
So it appears he is generically speaking about European NATO allied countries, so again my intiail assessment of this being baitish is correct. He doesnt mention the UK, because that would be ludicrous, Franxe and Netherlands were both quick to react, but other countries absolutely held back, and in Austria and other countries cases thw best they can say is 'we sent some troops to Afghanistan'.
So again, i think youve been baited into a reaction, needlessly. Its just generic enough to be true, but would be a stupid statement if specified to the UK. Where exactly is my defence of Trump here?