phase Donald Trump Under the presidency of the United States, the world began to anticipate his fortune in foreign policy, and he is a Republican returning to the White House, proud of his victory, which he considers historic.
Despite the flow of congratulations to the returning president, the common denominator among the well-wishers who are busy reading their horoscopes remains the concern that extends to include even the European allies who are preparing for a stormy phase that appears more stormy to non-allies.
This concern is reinforced by the fact that Trump’s policies are not based on knowledge or institutions, as much as they are based on the personality of Trump himself, which makes them appear to be an individual presentation of a president who has his own agenda. In the words of the British newspaper “The Guardian”, Trump “will work independently in his foreign policy. Therefore, “Be prepared for surprises.”
In the crowd of reactions to Trump’s victory and attempts to read early on the nature of his foreign policy towards issues and files of varying intensity around the world, Afghanistan’s share under the rule of the Taliban appears meager despite the intensity of analysts’ expectations and the readings of observers who are crowded with various media outlets.
Wait and hope
The Taliban government did not express prior positions during the election campaign towards Trump or his Democratic rival Kamla Harris At the height of the intense competition between them, even though the Afghan issue was present in their debate that took place last September.
It can be said that there is a kind of silent relief on the part of the Taliban over the loss of Harris as a woman, especially with the US administration reducing the position on the Taliban to the movement’s position on educating and employing women, which the Taliban considers exaggerated.
The Taliban government also believes that the administration of President joe biden It was used as an excuse to impose sanctions on the movement and deprive it of $7 billion in Afghan Central Bank assets that were deposited in New York, when US forces withdrew from Afghanistan.
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The implicit satisfaction with Harris’ loss was not expressed officially by the Taliban, but you sensed it early in off-the-record interviews with officials in the Taliban government since Harris announced her candidacy after Biden withdrew. She finds this position a fulfillment of her conviction about the mandate and that it should go to a man, not a woman.
Hope for a new chapter
After the presidential race was decided, the Taliban government’s response to Trump’s return as president 4 years after his departure from the White House was friendly, led by the movement’s expression of hope for a “new chapter in relations” with the United States.
According to Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Taliban government, the movement hopes that “the next US administration will adopt a practical approach to ensure tangible progress in bilateral relations, and this will allow both countries to open a new chapter of relations based on mutual participation.”
Balkhi was also keen to recall that the Doha Agreement signed on February 29, 2020 between the Taliban and the United States came during Trump’s first term and “led to the end of the 20-year occupation.”
Coincidence
Trump had previously praised the agreement and considered it “a step to end the United States’ longest war and return American forces from Afghanistan,” especially since it showed Trump as one who fulfilled his pledge to return American forces to the homeland.
But Trump’s position on the withdrawal decision taken by his successor, Joe Biden, in August 2021 was different, and he considered it a “shame” and one of the greatest defeats in American history. He called on Biden to resign from his position, and said: “If I were president now, the world would realize that our withdrawal from… Afghanistan is subject to conditions.”
America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 was one of the hot topics in the only debate between Trump and Harris last September, as Trump renewed his description of this withdrawal as “the worst military withdrawal in history,” and considered it the reason behind Russia’s attack on Ukraine “because they saw how incompetent Harris and his president are.” (Biden).”
Harris’s response was only to say, defending Biden’s decision to withdraw: “Four American presidents said that they would withdraw from Afghanistan, and Joe Biden implemented this issue.” As a result, American taxpayers are no longer paying the $300 million a day that we used to pay for this endless war.”
In the debate, Trump praised the agreement with the Taliban, saying: “It is a very good agreement because we could have gotten out faster and we would not have lost our forces and we would not have left so many Americans behind. We would not have left behind $85 billion of beautiful, new military equipment.”
As for after
The Taliban sees the continuation of the sanctions, which it described as illegal, on the Afghan financial and banking system as a “clear violation of human rights.” It also sees the Biden administration’s placing of restrictions on some of its leaders as an “obstacle to developing relations between the two sides.”
Will Trump’s position on these sanctions change and reconsider them? The key to answering this question is the personality of Trump himself and his deal-based policy. When he wanted to leave Afghanistan, he sought the help of the former Pakistani Prime Minister. Imran Khan In talking to the Taliban.
Trump rewarded Imran Khan for this by inviting him to visit Washington, during which he received exceptional praise from Khan. But once the deal with the Taliban was struck, Trump turned his back on Khan and Pakistan.
But Afghanistan, from which the Americans withdrew more than 3 years ago, is not the Afghanistan of today. On the internal level, the Taliban government provided the security that the country was deprived of for more than 4 consecutive decades, and on the external level, the Taliban committed to implementing the terms of the Doha Agreement.
The most prominent items that concern the US administration and which the Taliban government has committed to are taking unspecified measures to prevent other groups, including them Al-Qaeda From using Afghan territory to threaten the United States.
The Taliban government has succeeded in weaving a foreign policy in which Russia and China (the main source of concern for the American decision-maker) occupy a distinguished position embodied in recognition and economic agreements that include broad areas, the most important of which is the extraction of minerals that Afghanistan abounds in, especially lithium, which has the largest reserve of it in the world, as well as some other rare minerals. .
These relationships pose a challenge to American foreign policy as rising powers abroad work to reduce America’s global primacy by playing a role in reshaping the global economic and strategic order.
As for the hidden wealth of Afghanistan, that virgin land; It is unlikely that Trump will leave rival China or troubling Russia alone, as the United States wants to limit China’s political and economic influence in Pakistan, and this will be added to Afghanistan, which is… AIts stability will be key to broader regional security, including the security of Pakistan.
Previous experience with the approach adopted by Trump always focused on what any country could offer to America before it did anything for it. Will this matter be repeated with Afghanistan under the Taliban government? Are there future deals on the horizon that Trump will accept?
It is likely that the matter is possible in light of the pragmatic signals issued by both parties, which will be decided in the coming days after Trump officially takes office.
