‘An hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons’: Donald Trump makes a deeply unhinged case for why he’s working with the Taliban

President Donald Trump has made some pretty huge claims about the United States’ efforts to regain control of Bagram air base in Afghanistan. He dropped the news during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling it “a little breaking news”. The statement came as he was criticizing the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he called a “total disaster,” a move he says he would have done with “strength and dignity”.

He glossed over the fact that, to get this base, the U.S. has to basically work with the Taliban. Yes, after decades of fighting them, the U.S. is going to be friendly with the Taliban. The Washington Post claims that there have been meetings in Kabul between Adam Boehler, the U.S. special envoy for hostage response, and the Taliban’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi.

The Taliban even released a statement afterward saying the two sides had agreed to a prisoner swap, which they hope is a step toward normalizing relations. This suggests there might be something to Trump’s claim that the Taliban “need things from us”. While getting back prisoners is great, it’s important to remember that many died fighting the Taliban, and now the U.S. wants to work with them.

Trump wants the US to work with the Taliban

What’s really wild is Trump’s reasoning for wanting the base back. He said Bagram is “one of the biggest air bases in the world”. But the real kicker is his focus on China. He pointed out that the base is “an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” emphasizing that the focus wasn’t on Afghanistan itself. This is a pretty big deal and, to be fair, is a strategic move, especially considering the base’s location roughly 40 miles north of Kabul.

For nearly two decades, Bagram was the nerve center of U.S. counterterrorism operations in the region, with its two massive concrete runways serving as a launchpad for fighter jets, cargo planes, and drones. The base was a critical asset for projecting power and carrying out surveillance across South and Central Asia.

The site’s history, however, is a little darker. It became notorious for detention centers where torture reportedly took place. However, when the U.S. military withdrew in July 2021, they handed the base over to the Afghan government, only for it to be overrun by the Taliban the very next month. It hasn’t seen much use since then, despite the country claiming to be a great tourist destination.

This whole situation feels a lot like the kind of political back-and-forth that’s been happening for a while now. The Taliban have been more interested in fighting PUBG and TikTok, so that may have calmed things down. It’s interesting how Trump is now trying to reclaim something that was essentially abandoned during a withdrawal he himself initiated. We’ll have to wait and see if America actually gets the keys back to Bagram, and what that means for its relationship with both the Taliban and China.