KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, the Taliban expressed hope that his administration would take a “pragmatic approach” toward Afghanistan and begin a new phase of relations based on mutual engagement.
In a post on X today, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesperson for the Taliban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the Doha agreement between the Taliban and the U.S., signed during Trump’s administration, marked the end of the “twenty-year occupation.”
The ministry’s spokesperson also stated that they expect Trump to play a constructive role in ending the ongoing conflicts in the region and globally, particularly the ongoing “brutality & aggression” in Gaza and Lebanon.
Donald Trump, from the Republican Party, won the 2024 U.S. presidential election with 277 electoral votes, defeating his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, and securing his position as the nation’s 47th president.
This victory marks Trump’s return to the White House for a second term. He previously served as U.S. president from 2017 to 2021.
The Doha Agreement between the Taliban and the U.S., negotiated and signed during Trump’s first term in 2020, facilitated the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, leading to the swift collapse of the Western-backed republic government and the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
During the presidential campaign, Trump faced criticism for directly negotiating with the Taliban, including from his opponent, Kamala Harris, who called the Taliban a “terrorist organization.”
“When he was president, he negotiated one of the weakest deals you can imagine,” Harris said in the presidential debate in September. “The negotiation involved the Taliban getting 5,000 terrorists released.”
“He bypassed the Afghan government. He negotiated directly with a terrorist organization called the Taliban. He does not, again, appreciate the role and responsibility of the president of the United States to be commander-in-chief,” she added.
Harris also criticized Trump for inviting Taliban representatives to Camp David, a place she described as one where “we honor the importance of American diplomacy by inviting and receiving respected world leaders.”
Trump, however, defended the deal, saying that it facilitated the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, while criticizing the Biden administration for mishandling the withdrawal and allowing the Taliban to violate the agreement.
