Editorial: ​Donald Trump has been quite right to jolt Europe over its stance on defence

​All but Donald Trump’s most unrelenting critics accept that there are some things that he has succeeding in doing, such as bringing control to America’s southern border.

In the four years 2021 to 2024 inclusive approaching two million illegal immigrants were crossing that frontier from Mexico annually, when last year it plunged almost 90% to 240,000.

Another policy approach that has been both necessary and successful is getting Europe to pay more for its defence. Nations in the continent that often sneered at American culture and foreign policy failed to pay for their own military needs and then used the money saved to have generous welfare states Americans themselves did not enjoy, while the latter funded European protection.

It is remarkable that the United States tolerated this for so long, and is a reflection on the generosity of a country that is often disparaged on this side of the Atlantic.

Now President Trump has decided to pull 5,000 US troops out of Germany, after a dispute with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the US-Israeli war on Iran, and Mr Trump’s anger that European allies have been reluctant to get involved in the conflict in the Middle East. Mr Trump did not explicitly link the troop decision to the other disagreement but the linkage seems obvious.

The UK ought to be looking good in this row, because it has one of the world’s most admired militaries – or did. While the last Tory government presided over a relative decline in defence, this Labour one will not cut an out-of-control welfare budget to divert funds to defence.

It is possible to be both a critic of President Trump’s erratic, even reckless, handling of his conflict with the vile Iranian regime and recognise that while Britain took defence seriously not so long ago it has since neglected its security almost as much as some EU countries have done.