BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to relax restrictions on the U.S. military’s use of anti-personnel land mines was “completely unacceptable”, the European Union said on Tuesday in a rare formal criticism of Washington.

In a statement, the EU said the ban on such mines had “saved tens of thousands of people in the past twenty years ... Their use anywhere, anytime, and by any actor remains completely unacceptable to the European Union.”

Trump lifted the ban, implemented under the Obama administration on military use of the land mines outside of the Korean Peninsula, breaking with countries including NATO allies Britain and France, who have banned the weapons’ use.