Afghanistan: Multiple Crises at the Start of Trump’s Administration

As part of a series of executive actions, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an order to suspend U.S. foreign development aid for 90 days to assess the effectiveness of programs and their alignment with U.S. foreign policy. This caused chaos in some of the world’s poorest countries, including Afghanistan, which had been occupied by U.S. forces for over two decades. U.S. troops entered Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext of the war on terror and subsequently conducted a hasty withdrawal on August 31, 2021.

The order effectively halted projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) worldwide, including in Afghanistan. The U.S. State Department commented on the order, stating, “Foreign aid does not align with American interests and often contradicts American values. It undermines global peace by promoting ideas that directly conflict with harmonious and stable relations between nations.” They added that “U.S. policy is not to disburse any further U.S. foreign aid in a manner that does not fully align with the President’s foreign policy.”

The order stipulates that the heads of responsible departments and agencies, in consultation with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, will make decisions within 90 days regarding whether to continue, modify, or halt each foreign aid program based on review recommendations, with the approval of the Secretary of State. All heads of departments and agencies responsible for U.S. foreign development aid programs must immediately stop new commitments and disbursements of aid funds to foreign countries, implementing NGOs, international organizations, and contractors while awaiting reviews of these programs for effectiveness and alignment with U.S. foreign policy, to be conducted within 90 days of this order. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) must enforce this halt through its financial authority.

The suspension of U.S. aid has severely impacted Afghanistan, a country where its 40 million residents rely on humanitarian support. Abdul Latif Nazari, the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs in the Taliban government, stated that around 50 national and international relief organizations have suspended their operations across Afghanistan due to Trump’s decision. According to the World Food Program, about 15 million people in Afghanistan, mostly women and children, suffer from malnutrition or even hunger in some cases. While the World Food Program was able to provide assistance last year, funding has now come to a halt, with approximately 40% of that funding coming from the United States. Although U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that life-saving humanitarian aid would be exempt from the suspension, it remains unclear how much funding can be spent in this regard.

As aid was suspended, prices for essential food items like flour, cooking oil, rice, sugar, and bread have already increased, prompting former Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar to write: “Trump’s decision to stop all foreign aid will have catastrophic consequences for millions of Afghans and many others around the world. While the new U.S. administration has legitimate concerns regarding foreign aid, it could have taken a more compassionate and responsible approach to addressing these concerns, especially since the Afghan people broadly share the administration’s concerns regarding the efficiency and accountability of aid, as well as its diversion by the Taliban and other donors—undermining the generosity of American taxpayers and other donor nations, redirecting life-saving resources away from those who truly need them.”

There has long been a need for a serious assessment to enhance efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability within the aid bureaucracy, cut down on excessive spending, and prevent diversion and misuse. However, linking aid to donor interests—citing the alignment of foreign aid with U.S. policies as the third reason for its suspension—represents a significant departure from long-established international humanitarian principles. These principles assert that humanitarian aid should be provided solely based on humanitarian needs, forming an essential part of the rules-based global system historically advocated by the United States. While the international community has applied different rules for development funding as part of its foreign policy, humanitarian aid has remained distinct and often shielded from non-humanitarian considerations.

The suspension of aid poses grave dangers to the lives of hundreds of millions of aid recipients who depend on this assistance for their survival and livelihoods, with the impact expected to be widespread given the scale of U.S. foreign aid, which is the largest among global aid donors. This will be particularly painful and costly for Afghans, nearly 11.6 million of whom have recently suffered from acute food insecurity at “crisis” levels or worse, according to a recent UN report.

In this context, the conflict between the U.S. administration and the Taliban began to surface, as Trump recently stated that Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan has fallen into Chinese hands and that the Taliban should hand it over—along with American weapons—to Washington. However, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid responded: “Taking Bagram is a dream and an illusion. The U.S. must rid itself of this idea.” Regarding the return of American weapons, Mujahid stated: “These weapons are spoils of war, and we use them to defend our independence and Islamic order.” Mujahid warned the U.S. that Taliban leaders are not Ashraf Ghani (the former Afghan president) to comply with U.S. demands.

Mujahid claimed that Western interference in Afghan affairs is increasing day by day, declaring: “It is not easy for them to forget their failures.” However, intelligence reports indicate that some former Afghan leaders in Turkey met with representatives of the Pakistani intelligence, but the Afghanistan Resistance Council, the Taliban’s main rival based in Turkey, denied any such meetings with Pakistani intelligence representatives. After three and a half years of Taliban rule, no country recognizes this regime, and it has no banking relations with the world.