Trump suggests U.S. troops could return to Afghan base over China concerns : NPR

File – A door is seen at Badram air base in Afghanistan on Friday June 25, 2021. President Donald Trump suggested that he was working to restore an American presence at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. This occurs four years after the chaotic withdrawal of the country’s America left the base in the hands of the Taliban.

Rahmat Gul / AP / AP

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Rahmat Gul / AP / AP

President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that he was trying to restore an American presence at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, four years after the country’s chaotic removal of the country left the base in the hands of the Taliban.

Trump launched the idea at a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer when he finished a state visit to the United Kingdom and linked him to the United States to counter his main rival, China.

“We are trying to recover it,” said Trump about the base in a question to end the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

While Trump has described his call to the US military to restore a post in Afghanistan as “news from the” last time “, the republican president previously raised the idea. The White House did not immediately answer questions as to if he or the Pentagon made planning to return to the sprawling air base, which was at the heart of the longest American war.

During his first presidency, Trump established the conditions for American withdrawal by negotiating an agreement with the Taliban. The 20-year-old conflict ended up in disturbing fashion under President Joe Biden: the Afghan government supported by the United States collapsed, a macabre bombing killed 13 American troops and 170 others, and thousands of desperate Afghans came down to Kabul airport in search of a way out before the last American plane triggers the Kush Hindu.

The debacle of Afghanistan was a major setback at only eight months in the democratic presidency of Biden which he had trouble recovering.

Biden’s republican detractors, including Trump, seized him as a signal moment in a failed presidency. These criticisms persisted until today, especially last week that last week, when Trump said that the move encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in February 2022.

“He would never have done what he did, except that he did not respect the management of the United States,” said Trump, speaking of Putin. “They simply crossed the total disaster of Afghanistan for no reason. 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 largest air bases in the world. We gave them for nothing.”

It is not known whether the United States has new direct or indirect conversations with the Taliban government back in the country. But Trump suggested that the Taliban, who fought with an economic crisis, international legitimacy, internal rifts and rival militant groups since their return to power in 2021, could be the game to allow the American army to return.

“We are trying to recover it because they need things from us,” said Trump about the Taliban.

The president has repeated his point of view that an American presence in Bagram is useful because of his proximity to China, the most important economic and military competitor in the United States.

“But one of the reasons why we want this base is, as you know, is an hour from the place where China makes its nuclear weapons,” said Trump. “So many things happen.”

While the United States and the Taliban have no official diplomatic links, the parties had conversations in hostage. An American who was kidnapped over two years ago while crossing Afghanistan as a tourist was released by the Taliban in March.

Last week, the Taliban also said that they had entered into an agreement with American envoys on an exchange of prisoners as part of an effort to normalize relations between the United States and Afghanistan.

The Taliban gave no details of an inmate exchange, and the White House did not comment on the meeting in Kabul or the results described in a Taliban statement. The Taliban published photographs of their talks, showing their Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amir Khan Muttaqi, with Trump’s special envoy for the hostage response, Adam Boehler.

US Central Command officials in the Middle East and the Pentagon, including the office of the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have returned questions about the restoration of a presence in Bagram in the White House.