Let’s pick a fight with Denmark.

Staff at the US embassy in Copenhagen have removed 44 flags decorated with the names of Danish soldiers that were killed in Afghanistan, put up after US President Donald Trump’s recent criticism of allied countries’ military contributions.

As yet unidentified activists put up the flags on Tuesday but they were removed later the same day by an embassy security guard, according to Danish media TV2,

In an interview with Fox News last week, Trump said that allied soldiers in Afghanistan, “stayed a little back, a little off the front lines” – causing pushback from European capitals.

Trump himself, by the way, stayed more than a little back. Trump stayed all the way back. Way way way back.

Copenhagen’s mayor for environmental affairs, Line Barfoed called the removal “disrespectful.” “The flags marked in a very nice and quiet manner the tremendous effort that the Danish soldiers deployed there made over several years,” she said in a statement to Euractiv.

“There was no malicious intent behind removing the flags” an embassy spokesperson told TV2, adding that if the embassy management had been aware of the purpose, the flags would have remained in place. Yet according to the outlet, embassy security staff was briefed on the action before they the flags were removed.

Leave no ally uninsulted.