President Donald Trump says the US wants to reclaim an abandoned airbase in Afghanistan, an installation near China’s nuclear capabilities.
It’s not the first time Trump has said that the US should reopen Bagram Air Base, which was forfeited during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. He says it’s necessary to counter China.
At a press conference in the UK on Thursday, Trump told reporters the US was “trying to get” Bagram back but did not elaborate on plans to do so. The base is currently under the control of the Afghan government.
Trump has heavily and repeatedly criticized former President Joe Biden for the abandonment of the strategic airbase during the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, arguing the move left its facilities as well as US assets under Taliban control. He has also claimed that the base is now under Chinese control, which the Afghan government has denied.
The Department of Defense referred Business Insider to the White House when it reached out for details on Trump’s comments. The White House referred BI to the Pentagon. Nancy Youseff, a reporter for The Atlantic, reported that DoD’s initial response to the president’s statement on reopening the airbase was: “You mean in Afghanistan?”
For Trump, Bagram has strategic importance due to its proximity to China, specifically Chinese nuclear capabilities.
“One of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” Trump explained at the news conference Thursday. “So a lot of things are happening, but I am very disappointed in the fact that that one’s not settled.” This has been a long-standing issue for the president.
At the start of his second term, he was adamant that reclaiming Bagram was a priority for his administration. He said that the US left billions of dollars in military equipment and weapons there and that getting it back had more to do with strategic interests regarding China than Afghanistan.
China has several nuclear sites in the western region of its country, notably in Xinjiang, where the Lop Nur test site is located, and Gansu. New missile silo fields in Hami and Yumen for solid-fueled missiles are under construction or nearing completion. There are also related sites in Qinghai.
Whether the unspecified sites Trump is speaking about are an “hour away” is unclear, but Bagram’s location would potentially offer feasible intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance flights, among other military options, though there would be other factors in play.
China, long a focus for the US military, has bolstered its nuclear weapons capabilities in recent years, building new silos while expanding and upgrading its strategic arsenal. In its report on China’s military last year, the Pentagon said Beijing seeks to grow its nuclear arsenal over the next decade. The Pentagon estimated China had 600 operational nuclear warheads in its stockpile as of mid-2024 and would reach 1,000 operational warheads by 2030.
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