The United States had withdrawn its troops from Bagram in the summer of 2021, shortly before the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
The United States is actively working to regain control over Bagram Air Base in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, President Donald Trump said in remarks on Sept. 18.
U.S. forces relinquished control over the major air base in 2021, during the force drawdown from the country. The United States handed over control of the base to the U.S.-backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which collapsed in August 2021 as the Taliban seized control over the Afghan capital city of Kabul.
Speaking during a news conference in the UK on Sept. 18, Trump suggested that the current Taliban authority in Afghanistan needs things that the United States can provide and may be amenable to a deal allowing a renewed U.S. presence at the key base.
“We’re trying to get it back, because they need things from us. We want that base back,” the president said.
Trump stressed the potential strategic significance of a renewed U.S. presence in Afghanistan, including as a strategic counterbalance to China.
“One of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” he said.
In 2020, the Trump administration finalized an agreement with the Taliban that set the stage for the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden continued with the U.S. force withdrawal during his term, but pushed back the final withdrawal date from May 1, 2021, to Aug. 31, 2021.
The Taliban mounted an offensive across Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, as U.S. troops were still winding down their mission in the country.
Amid its precipitous collapse, the U.S.-backed Afghan government abandoned billions of dollars in U.S.-supplied military equipment, which later fell into Taliban hands. During this time, the Taliban also emptied multiple prisons and detention facilities housing insurgent suspects.
After the U.S.-backed Afghan government in Kabul collapsed, the U.S. military withdrawal expanded into a general evacuation of U.S. civilians and vulnerable Afghan refugees through a single exit point, at the nearby Kabul airport.
Thirteen U.S. service members were killed when an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated an explosive at a checkpoint leading up to the Kabul airport on Aug. 26, 2021. Dozens of civilians were also killed, and numerous additional civilians and U.S. troops were injured in the attack.
Trump and Biden have traded blame over the years for the outcome of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A 2023 report, prepared by the Biden White House, stated, “President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor.”
Trump, by contrast, has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for giving up control of the Bagram Air Base.
As he spoke to reporters on Sept. 18, Trump again said he would have kept control of the base.
“We were going to keep Bagram,” he said.
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