Trump on Afghan Taliban funding
- “I write to express my strong concerns,” Burchett on aid to Taliban.
- Lawmaker points out $10m of foreign aid given to Taliban in taxes.
- Seeks Trump’s support for legislation against support to Kabul.
As Pakistan continues to call on Kabul to stop its soil from being used by terrorist groups, a United States US lawmaker has also penned a letter to President-elect Donald Trump against the funding of Afghan Taliban.
“I write to express my strong concerns with foreign aid being funnelled to the [Afghan] Taliban. [….] The US should not fund its enemies abroad,” wrote US Congressman Tim Burchett in his letter to Trump.
Recalling US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s confirmation during the 118th Congress that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had paid nearly $10 million of foreign aid to the Taliban in taxes, Burchett warned that the cash shipments were impossible to track after being auctioned off.
“This is how the Taliban is being funded and plans to fund terrorism around the world,” warned the lawmaker while lamenting his failed attempt to introduce legislation in 2023 aimed at “discouraging foreign countries from providing financial or material support to the Taliban and to report on direct-cash assistance programs and the Taliban’s influence over Afghanistan’s Central Bank”.
The letter is of significance US lawmaker as Trump, who is set to take control of the White House this month after winning the November elections last year, is the one whose administration negotiated the “Doha Agreement” with the Afghan Taliban in 2020, eventually leading to the fall of Kabul one year later in 2021 which coincided with the US lawmaker withdrawal from the war-torn country under his successor President Joe Biden’s tenure.
Expressing his urge to work with the Trump administration, Congressman Burchett called on the president-elect to “take action and put an end to wasteful foreign aid spending”.
He further remarked that he intends to reintroduce his legislation on the said issue in the 119th Congress and would “welcome his [Trump’s] support”.
The US lawmaker letter — also retweeted by Trump’s close aide and tech billionaire Elon Musk who questioned whether the US taxpayers’ money was being sen to the Taliban — comes in the wake of increased terrorist incidents in Pakistan ever since the interim Afghan Taliban-led administration came at the helm in Kabul.
Last month, Pakistani security forces thwarted an attempted infiltration and retaliated decisively against a cross-border attack by militants who launched an unprovoked attack on Pakistani posts in coordination with the Afghan Taliban.
Islamabad has time again urged Kabul to not allow its territory to be used by terrorist groups to carry out attacks against Pakistan.
“We desire good ties with them [Kabul] but TTP should be stopped from killing our innocent people [….] This is our red line,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was quoted saying in a cabinet meeting in December 2024.