The Taliban are trying to win Trump over by playing the mineral card

The first time there was talk of negotiations between Donald Trump’s administration and the Taliban government following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan on 15 August 2021 was, in fact, two years ago, with a view to re-establishing a US military presence at the Afghan airbase in Bagram, north of Kabul. The talks regarding a prisoner exchange and a base for counter-terrorism operations were seen as the first between Washington and Kabul aimed at normalising relations with the Taliban; the Afghan Foreign Ministry had spoken of cooperation, economic relations and “policies based on mutual respect and shared benefits”, but had categorically ruled out any return of US troops to the country. Even today, the regime—despite its sole priority being to emerge from international isolation and secure an easing of sanctions—remains firm in its stance that all military and civilian facilities in Afghanistan—including Bagram—are “Afghan national assets”; there is no question of a US military presence on Afghan soil, but money, weapons and diplomacy are on the table.

Last May, the Taliban government, at the Moscow Security Forum, signed a military agreement with Russia, the only country to have formally recognised the group in recent years as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Countries such as China, Belarus, India and Qatar also maintain diplomatic, commercial and economic ties with the Taliban without officially recognising their government, and in recent months Kabul has concluded dozens of trade agreements with Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In June, even the European Union, for the first time since 2021, hosted a delegation of Taliban officials in Brussels to discuss repatriation: the regime described the visit as ‘historic’, a step towards normalising consular relations with European countries.

However, this is not enough for the Taliban, and the regime is now reportedly opening up further channels of communication with US diplomats, particularly regarding the mining sector, though not exclusively. The Taliban’s Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said in a recent interview with the Financial Times that his government would “undoubtedly” welcome US investment in sectors such as mining, infrastructure, agriculture and trade; Kabul’s economic policy is open and “relations between Afghanistan and the United States should not be assessed through the lens of the last twenty years of war, but on the basis of future cooperation”. According to estimates, the value of the country’s mineral resources is said to be at least one thousand billion dollars: these include significant deposits of copper, iron ore, niobium, cobalt, gold and lithium – the latter having been singled out by Donald Trump: since the US withdrawal, the Taliban have already announced mining investments totalling over seven billion dollars in countries such as China and Iran, for the extraction of gold, precious stones and chromite, which is used in steel production. In addition to minerals, the group has also opened channels of communication regarding infrastructure, agriculture, trade and the reopening of the US embassy, which has been closed since 2021 and where the regime would guarantee security.

A few weeks ago, marking the fifth anniversary of the group’s return to the country, Muttaqi told the New York Times that the “chapter of war” with the United States was over, and that he expected “relations based on mutual respect and a new chapter of positive engagement”. Speaking to the Financial Times, the Afghan Foreign Minister went a step further, praising Donald Trump’s negotiating skills and his pragmatic and resolute approach, and calling on any country to invest in Afghanistan.

It is unclear whether the proposal on minerals was put forward directly by the White House, but the Taliban regime has realised that the only way to persuade Donald Trump to unfreeze assets and ease sanctions – thereby reviving its economy – is through flattery and business dealings, playing the rare-earth card, which has already proved successful on other occasions.

Some analysts have noted that implementing an economic agreement with Kabul – as well as legitimising the violation of Afghans’ rights that has been ongoing for more than five years – would be complex from a financial perspective, due to sanctions, and from a practical perspective: Afghanistan lacks the roads, electricity grids and processing facilities needed to extract and export minerals on a large scale.