FILE – A gate is seen on the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Friday, June 25, 2021. President Donald Trump has steered he is working to reestablish a U.S. presence at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. That comes 4 years after America’s chaotic withdrawal from the nation left the bottom within the Taliban’s fingers.
Rahmat Gul/AP/AP
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Rahmat Gul/AP/AP
President Donald Trump on Thursday steered that he’s working to reestablish a U.S. presence at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, 4 years after America’s chaotic withdrawal from the nation left the bottom within the Taliban’s fingers.
Trump floated the concept throughout a press convention with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he wrapped up a state go to to the U.Ok. and tied it to the necessity for the U.S. to counter its prime rival, China.
“We’re trying to get it back,” Trump mentioned of the bottom in an apart to a query about ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Whereas Trump described his name for the U.S. army to reestablish a place in Afghanistan as “breaking news,” the Republican president has beforehand raised the concept. The White Home didn’t instantly reply to questions on whether or not it or the Pentagon has performed any planning round returning to the sprawling air base, which was central to America’s longest struggle.
Throughout his first presidency, Trump set the phrases for the U.S. withdrawal by negotiating a take care of the Taliban. The 20-year battle got here to an finish in disquieting trend beneath President Joe Biden: The U.S.-backed Afghan authorities collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 13 U.S. troops and 170 others, and 1000’s of determined Afghans descended on Kabul’s airport looking for a method out earlier than the ultimate U.S. plane departed over the Hindu Kush.
The Afghanistan debacle was a serious setback simply eight months into Biden’s Democratic presidency that he struggled to get better from.
Biden’s Republican detractors, together with Trump, seized on it as a sign second in a failed presidency. These criticisms have endured into the current day, together with as not too long ago as final week, when Trump claimed the transfer emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in February 2022.
“He would have never done what he did, except that he didn’t respect the leadership of the United States,” Trump mentioned, talking of Putin. “They just went through the Afghanistan total disaster for no reason whatsoever. We were going to leave Afghanistan, but we were going to leave it with strength and dignity. We were going to keep Bagram Air Base — one of the biggest air bases in the world. We gave it to them for nothing.”
It’s unclear if the U.S. has any new direct or oblique conversations with the Taliban authorities about returning to the nation. However Trump hinted that the Taliban, who’ve struggled with an financial disaster, worldwide legitimacy, inside rifts and rival militant teams since their return to energy in 2021, might be sport to permit the U.S. army to return.
“We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” Trump mentioned of the Taliban.
The president repeated his view {that a} U.S. presence at Bagram is of worth due to its proximity to China, probably the most vital financial and army competitor to the US.
“But one of the reasons we want that base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” Trump mentioned. “So a lot of things are happening.”
Whereas the U.S. and the Taliban haven’t any formal diplomatic ties, the edges have had hostage conversations. An American man who was kidnapped greater than two years in the past whereas touring via Afghanistan as a vacationer was launched by the Taliban in March.
Final week, the Taliban additionally mentioned they reached an settlement with U.S. envoys on an alternate of prisoners as a part of an effort to normalize relations between the US and Afghanistan.
The Taliban gave no particulars of a detainee swap, and the White Home didn’t touch upon the assembly in Kabul or the outcomes described in a Taliban assertion. The Taliban launched pictures from their talks, exhibiting their overseas minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, with Trump’s particular envoy for hostage response, Adam Boehler.
Officers at U.S. Central Command within the Center East and the Pentagon, together with Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s workplace, referred questions on reestablishing a presence at Bagram to the White Home.
