Reflecting what is clearly becoming a heated debate within the U.S. Congress and other sectors of the Biden administration, yesterday a group of 46, largely Democratic Congressmen wrote to President Joe Biden, with a copy to Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen, urging the former to “avoid harsh economic measures that will directly harm Afghan families and children,” which, they said, means “conscientiously but urgently modifying current U.S. policy regarding the freeze of Afghanistan’s foreign reserves and ongoing sanctions.” Led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash), Chuy Garcia (D-ILL), and Sara Jacobs (D-CA), the letter quotes UN officials, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and the World Food Program on the threat of one million children dying of starvation, of “universal poverty by next year,” with a poverty rate expected to reach 98%. It is for this reason, the Congress Members state, “that we are deeply concerned by the continued U.S. freeze of Afghanistan’s foreign reserves, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s choice to deny Afghanistan access to special reserve assets intended to help developing countries alleviate the impact of the pandemic and U.S. sanctions’ impact on Afghanistan.” They note that the U.S.’s confiscation of $9.4 billion in the country’s currency reserves has caused soaring inflation, and the shutting down of businesses and commercial banks.
Thus, the letter urges Biden to consider the proposals made by current and former Afghan Central Bank officials, backed by private sector business and banking associations, who are asking the Administration to provide the Central Bank access to hard currency reserves. The letter underscores that no amount of humanitarian aid can “compensate for the macroeconomic harm of soaring price of basic commodities, a banking collapse, a balance-of-payments crisis, a freeze on civil servants’ salaries and other severe consequences that are rippling through Afghan society, harming the most vulnerable.” Reserves that would be returned would be used largely to purchase imports by the private sector, the letter explains, and failure to release them will harm the entire population. “We fear, as aid groups do, that maintaining this policy would cause more civilian deaths in the coming year than were lost in 20 years of war.” (emphasis added)
The Congress Members say that of course they “deplore” the Taliban’s grave human rights abuses, but add that the situation now requires “pragmatic U.S. engagement with the de facto authorities” as key to averting “unprecedented harm to tens of millions of women, children and innocent civilians. Punitive economic policies will not weaken Taliban leaders,” the letter warns, and quotes Mary-Ellen McGroarty, the World Food Program country director for Afghanistan, who states, “we need to separate the politics from the humanitarian imperative.” Failure to maintain open communication, the letter underscores, not only risks humanitarian devastation, but could cause the Taliban to retrench from U.S. engagement and cooperation on counterterrorism and ultimately “enable resentment against the U.S. producing fertile ground for groups like ISIS to gain strength and use the territory as a staging ground for plots against the U.S. and its allies.”
