Trump says he’ll pursue trade deal with Taliban for control of Bagram Airfield if reelected

Former President Donald Trump indicated at a campaign event Saturday that he’d like to pursue a deal with the Taliban to regain control of Bagram Airfield.

Recall that during current President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan two years ago, the U.S. military suddenly abandoned Bagram Airfield, thus allowing Taliban militants to seize control of it.

Speaking at a campaign event in Fort Dodge, Iowa, the former president said he’d like to regain access to the base so that the United States may keep a better eye on China.

Listen:

“Bagram is the biggest air base just about there is in the world … and we gave it up. And I didn’t want it for Afghanistan. I wanted it because that’s one hour away from where China makes it nuclear missiles. And we gave it up. Why did we give it up?” he said.

“This thing cost billions of dollars years ago many years ago. We didn’t need it for Afghanistan, but it was right next to where they [China] make their missions. And now you know who occupies that? China occupies it. How stupid are these people. It’s so sad. But we’ll get it back maybe. Maybe we’ll get it back as part of a trade deal. Give us back that damn airport,” he added.

It’s not so much that the Chinese “occupy” Bagram as it is that Chinese military units have reportedly been spotted at the base training terrorists.

“Sources … indicate that Chinese military personnel are on the ground at Bagram, and they are training Haqqani network fighters,” AND Magazine reported in March of 2022.

The magazine previously reported in 2021 that “Chinese personnel were on the ground at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan.”

Trump has for his part been complaining about the Biden administration’s decision to abandon Bagram since the abandonment occurred two years ago.

Speaking in late August of 2021, he suggested the air base could have been used to make the evacuation of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies out of Afghanistan less chaotic. And like he just noted this past weekend, he also noted the strategic advantage of the base.

“We should have sent the people out very safely, and we would have had Bagram open. We should have kept Bagram because Bagram is between China. It has total access to China, Iran, and Afghanistan. And I guess they didn’t realize that they abandoned it,” he said during an appearance on “The Truth with Lisa Boothe” podcast, as reported by the Washington Examiner.

At the time, the Biden administration for their part feverishly defended the decision to abandon the airbase.

“When it comes to Bagram, the best military advice that we received was that, number one, Bagram was an immense facility that would be difficult to secure over time and put our troops at risk,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

“And second, it didn’t logistically make sense from an evacuation perspective because it is located outside of Kabul, and both American diplomats, American citizens, and most of the Afghans at risk live inside Kabul,” he added.

Congressional Republicans meanwhile sided with Trump:

Dovetailing back to the present, leftists reacted to Trump’s proposal the usual way — by throwing a fit and accusing him of being this, that, and the third.

Look:

Vivek Saxena

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