The European Union condemned the Trump administration's plan to expand the use of anti-personnel landmines on Tuesday, stating that the use of these weapons "anywhere, anytime, and by any actor remains completely unacceptable to the European Union."

The EU — which consists of many close US allies like France, Germany and Spain — stressed that the Trump administration's plan "negatively affects the international rules-based order."

"I worry if the United States withdraws from its leadership around the world," the UK's defense secretary said in the wake of the Trump administration's decision to kill an Iranian general.

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The European Union condemned the Trump administration's plan to expand the use of anti-personnel landmines, brutal weapons of war banned by around 160 countries worldwide, in a statement Tuesday.

Last Friday, the Trump administration overturned an Obama-era policy that largely committed the US to a 1997 treaty prohibiting the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines (APLs), the only exception being the defense of South Korea.

The new policy allows for the US military to employ advanced, non-persistent landmines in conflicts outside the Korean peninsula.

"This action," the White House said at the time, "is yet another in a series of actions taken by the Trump administration to give our military the flexibility and capability it needs to win."

On Tuesday, the EU, which consists of many US allies and international partners, as well as signatories to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, issued a statement condemning the move, arguing that these weapons threaten the lives of innocent civilians.

"The decision by the United States Government to re-authorize the use of anti-personnel mines by US military forces outside of the Korean Peninsula undermines the global norm against anti-personnel mines," the EU said, explaining that this norm "has saved tens of thousands of people in the past twenty years."

Landmines, according to the Landmine Monitor, have killed around 130,000 people, mostly civilians, between 1998 and 2018, and without international treaties banning their use it is likely that number would be significantly higher. The US argues that the landmines it is allowing the US military to use are "specifically designed to reduce harm to civilians and partner forces."

The use of APLs "anywhere, anytime, and by any actor remains completely unacceptable to the European Union," the EU said Tuesday.

The EU stressed that the US and the EU are both major players in mine action assistance efforts around the world. "The re-authorization of the use of anti-personnel mines is not only a direct contradiction to these actions but also negatively affects the international rules-based order," it added.

Such criticisms of the US by the EU are rare, but lately, actions by the Trump administration, which has emphasized its policies as "America First," have created rifts between the US and some of its allies and partners in Europe.

In the wake of the US drone strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani early last month, European allies expressed concern rather than support for the killing that brought the countries to the brink of war.

Days after the strike, Ben Wallace, the UK defense secretary, commenting on the Trump administration's approach to foreign policy in an interview with the Sunday Times, said: "I worry if the United States withdraws from its leadership around the world," adding that the thought "keeps me awake at night."