Alwaght- When Donald Trump came back to the White House, it was thought that in the foreign policy, he will focus on China, Ukraine, and West Asia. The silence of Trump in the first days of his assumption of power on Afghanistan made some observers speculate that in his second term he will not very much pay attention to Afghanistan issues.
On the other hand, the Taliban group as the current rulers of Afghanistan negotiated and agreed with Biden administration on release of two American prisoners in Kabul before Trump took the office, but they had delayed the deal until Trump was sworn in. The release of the two Americans under Trump despite deal under Biden was a kind of green light to Trump showing that the Taliban are ready to cooperate with the new American administration. However, just against the expectation of the Kabul leaders, the Washington officials and especially the new Secretary of State Mark Rubio went on the offensive, avoiding openness to the group. Condemning the Taliban on the heels of release of the two American prisoners, Rubio said that they have to release more imprisoned Americans. He even did not rule out a reward for arrest of the Taliban leader, suggesting that the reward could be more than that put for arrest of the Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
What does Trump want from the Taliban?
What we can so far take from official stances of Trump regarding the Taliban is the demand from the group to return the weapons and military equipment the US left after it fled Afghanistan in August 2021. Two weeks ago, Trump called for return of American weapons which are worth $7 billion. While the Taliban have so far did not take any official measures in response, some Taliban leaders who spoke to the Aljazeera on the condition of anonymity said that the US military wares and arms are needed for fight against ISIS-Khorasan terrorist group. This means that so far, the Taliban have made no decision to hand over the weapons to the US.
Trump also cut off financial aid to Kabul, warning that this will be permanent if they do not return the American weapons.
Official response to Trump: We are not Ashraf Ghani
Responding to Trump’s demand for weapons handover and also regaining control of Bagram Airbase, Taliban’s Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said: “Taking back Bagram is a pipe dream. The United States and the fugitives of the past regime should remove this dream from their heads.”
Dismissing Trump’s claim of China operating Bagram Airbase, Mujahed held that “this base is in the hand of the Islamic Emirate’s forces. Afghanistan is independent and we give our soil to no country. Bagram is in the hand of our forces, not China.”
Commenting on the possibility of returning the American weapons, the spokesman said that these weapons are “spoils of war” and will be used to defend the Afghanistan’s independence and its Islamic government.
The Taliban government spokesman warned the Trump administration on X, saying: “We will not give any of the remaining weapons from America to anyone. This is a spoil, and if anyone wants them, we will respond with these same weapons. We are not Ashraf Ghani, who was doing whatever you ordered.”
What is Trump worried about?
It seems that Trump’s concerns go beyond the weapons and military equipment left behind the US forces in Afghanistan.
Chinese influence: China has managed to sign several cooperation agreements with the Taliban in the past years within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative. In fact, in the absence of the US, the Chinese government has managed to present itself as a reliable partner for the Taliban, a situation nightmarish to Trump’s US. While many countries in the world treat the Taliban as a pariah, China has expanded its diplomatic and economic ties in Afghanistan. The Taliban also seem pleased with this attention. DW news network reported that last year Chinese President Xi Jinping accepted credentials of the Taliban ambassador as the first foreign leader doing so and later last summer, China became the first country to name an ambassador to Kabul under the Taliban rule. Sayyed Jalal Bazvan, the professor of political science at Kabul’s private Kardan University told Reuters that rich natural resources of Afghanistan like copper, lithium, or rare soil have considerscle economic potentials for China.
All of these conditions mean that China is now an influential country in Afghanistan, and without a doubt, China’s extensive influence in Afghanistan is not desirable for the US government, and Trump is not interested in China being replaced after the US left Afghanistan. In fact, the Trump administration’s policy is to increase pressure on China in all regions, and pressure on China in Afghanistan also seems to be one of Trump’s other options against Beijing.
International recognition of the Taliban: The number of countries willing to engage with the Taliban continues to grow, and some of these countries, including Qatar, are allies and friends of the United States. This is while the Trump administration, while cutting aid to Afghanistan, is seeking to pressure the Taliban in a bid to disrupt the process of recognizing Taliban sovereignty, because international recognition of the Taliban means legitimizing their anti-American approach, and this is not something that Trump is ready to accept. The Taliban and the US were engaged in a deadly war for 20 years, a war that costed the US thousands of billions of dollars, beside taking lives of thousands of American soldiers. Over the past few days that the US funding to the Taliban was cut off by Trump, a crisis swept through the Afghan financial markets, though the Taliban took some measures to get things back on the track. The measures include forcing exchangers to sell their dollars or banning publishing dollar price on social media and news websites. But these measures do not seem so far to have managed to alleviate the US pressures on the country.
