During his joint press conference with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London yesterday, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that he is working to get US military forces back into Afghanistan, in particular the Bagram air base north of Kabul. “We’re trying to get it back,” Trump said of the base in an aside to a question about ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reported AP. “We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” Trump claimed of the Taliban.
Trump also repeated his view that a U.S. presence at Bagram is of value because of its proximity to China. “But one of the reasons we want that base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” he said. “So a lot of things are happening.” While the U.S. and the Taliban have no formal diplomatic ties, the sides have had other conversations.
An unnamed U.S. official told Reuters that there was no active planning to militarily take over Bagram air base, which the U.S. abandoned when it withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
The official said any effort to reclaim the base would be a significant undertaking, requiring tens of thousands of troops to take and hold the base, an expensive effort to repair it and a logistical headache to resupply the base—which would be an isolated U.S. enclave in a landlocked country.
