Following the re-election of President Donald Trump in November last year, Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership expressed hopes of opening ‘a new chapter’ in relations with the US. Afghanistan has not featured strongly in the Trump administration’s policy announcements – but the signs so far are not promising. In the final hours of the Biden presidency, the Taliban exchanged two American citizens for a Taliban member jailed in the US.
But the new Trump administration has already taken a much more aggressive stance: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said bounties could be placed on Taliban leaders to force the release of any remaining US hostages. Meanwhile, Trump has talked about retrieving weapons left behind during America’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan (a demand that Taliban spokesmen have dismissed).
The 90-day halting of US international aid is already impacting humanitarian efforts in the country. The US government has remained the biggest aid donor by far even since its military withdrawal, providing $3.63 billion between October 2021 and December 2024.
If Trump’s ‘America First’ policies lead to a permanent halt of assistance, it will undoubtedly deepen Afghanistan’s multi-layered humanitarian crises. Over half of Afghanistan’s estimated 40 million population, nearly 23 million people, is projected to require humanitarian assistance in 2025. Disengaging with Afghanistan threatens to push the country towards pariah status – a situation that US and Western policymakers should seek to avoid at all costs.
