FILE – A gate is seen on the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Friday, June 25, 2021. President Donald Trump has recommended 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 palms.
Rahmat Gul/AP/AP
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Rahmat Gul/AP/AP
President Donald Trump on Thursday recommended 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 palms.
Trump floated the thought 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 making an attempt to get it again,” Trump stated 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. navy to reestablish a place in Afghanistan as “breaking information,” the Republican president has beforehand raised the thought. The White Home didn’t instantly reply to questions on whether or not it or the Pentagon has achieved any planning round returning to the sprawling air base, which was central to America’s longest struggle.
Trump has seized on the U.S. withdrawal beneath Biden
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 vogue 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 in quest of a method out earlier than the ultimate U.S. plane departed over the Hindu Kush.
The Afghanistan debacle was a significant setback simply eight months into Biden’s Democratic presidency that he struggled to get well from.
Biden’s Republican detractors, together with Trump, seized on it as a sign second in a failed presidency. These criticisms have continued into the current day, together with as lately as final week, when Trump claimed the transfer emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in February 2022.
“He would have by no means achieved what he did, besides that he did not respect the management of america,” Trump stated, talking of Putin. “They simply went by the Afghanistan whole catastrophe for no cause in any way. We had been going to go away Afghanistan, however we had been going to go away it with power and dignity. We had been going to maintain Bagram Air Base — one of many largest air bases on the earth. We gave it to them for nothing.”
Requested once more in regards to the proposal hours in a while Air Drive One, Trump supplied no particulars however once more bashed Biden for “gross incompetence” and stated the bottom ought to have “by no means been given again.”
“It is one of the highly effective bases on the earth by way of runway power and size,” he stated. “You may land something on there. You may land a planet on prime of it.”
No readability if there have been discussions with the Taliban about Bagram
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, may very well be sport to permit the U.S. navy to return.
“We’re making an attempt to get it again as a result of they want issues from us,” Trump stated of the Taliban.
The president repeated his view {that a} U.S. presence at Bagram is of worth due to its proximity to China, essentially the most vital financial and navy competitor to america.
“However one of many causes we would like that base is, as you realize, it is an hour away from the place China makes its nuclear weapons,” Trump stated. “So a whole lot of issues are taking place.”
Late Thursday, Zakir Jalaly, an official on the Taliban Overseas Ministry, dismissed the thought of the U.S. returning to Bagram.
“Afghanistan and the U.S. have to work together with one another and may have financial and political relations primarily based on mutual respect and customary pursuits,” Jalaly stated on the social platform X. “The Afghans haven’t accepted a navy presence in historical past, and this chance was utterly rejected through the Doha talks and settlement, however the door is open for additional interplay.”
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 by Afghanistan as a vacationer was launched by the Taliban in March.
Final week, the Taliban additionally stated they reached an settlement with U.S. envoys on an alternate of prisoners as a part of an effort to normalize relations between america 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, displaying their international 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.
