Afghanistan Peace CampaignEditorial
The Washington Post
September 21, 2025
Now, President Donald Trump says he wants Bagram back. “We gave it to them for nothing,” he said in in London on Thursday. “We’re trying to get it back, by the way. … We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us.” Good. Bagram is worth pursuing, though not at any cost.
Bagram is strategically important because of its proximity to the border with China and to a nuclear testing range at Lop Nur in a remote part of Xinjiang province. The testing range was long believed abandoned, but there have been reports of increased Chinese military construction activities in the area.
An American military presence at Bagram would also allow the U.S. to conduct counterterrorism operations in a volatile region against the Islamic State-Khorasan terrorist group, which is also at war with the Taliban and has also spread its tentacles into Europe.
What the Taliban wants most from the U.S. is recognition. The country’s seat at the United Nations is still held by the former government. The Taliban would also like to access $7 billion in assets frozen in the U.S. to boost its flagging economy.
Taliban officials don’t sound eager for American troops to return to Bagram. “Afghans have never accepted foreign military presence in their land throughout history,” a senior foreign ministry official, Zakir Jalaly, said. But there’s room to negotiate. As Jalaly pointedly added: “Afghanistan and America need engagement on economic and political relations based on bilateral respect and common interests.”
Trump has leverage. This month, the Taliban’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, and Trump’s special envoy for hostages, Adam Boehler, said they had reached a deal on a prisoner exchange. The Wall Street Journal reported that talks about a small American contingent basing out of Bagram were in the early stages.
But there’s little reason to believe that the U.S. diplomatic boycott of Afghanistan, more than four years after the Taliban took over, is exerting meaningful pressure that will make the government crack. Other actors are filling the void. Better for Washington to have more influence in Kabul than less.
The return of a small American military contingent to Bagram would be a far cry from the commanding presence that existed before. But it would give the U.S. a toehold in a strategically vital region as competition with China continues.