How Can the West Handle the Taliban?

With Donald Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency, the United States and the West face renewed opportunities and challenges in their approach to Afghanistan. His former envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, saw the election as an opening to fully implement the Doha Agreement, moving toward normalized relations, while the Taliban themselves have urged Trump for a “new chapter” in U.S.-Afghan relations.

Yet Trump’s new national security advisor, Mike Waltz, a decorated Afghanistan veteran, criticized the previous agreement, arguing that Washington had “unconditionally surrendered” and called for renewed U.S. fighting against the Taliban during the 2021 withdrawal. As the U.S. president who brokered the Doha Agreement, which set the stage for the complete withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan—and who once engaged in the controversial overture of inviting the Taliban to Camp David—Trump in his second term has a unique opportunity to build credibility with the Taliban to avoid past mistakes.

Trump will inherit a nearly deadlocked U.S. relationship with the Taliban, amid a waning Western focus. While Afghanistan’s neighbors are essentially moving toward de facto recognition, the recent closure of Afghan embassies in Europe and the quiet discontinuation of the position of the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan are signaling an increasing diplomatic decoupling between Kabul and the West. This has diminished the importance of formal recognition for the Taliban, eroding one of the West’s key leverage points.

The United States and its European partners have four key interests in Afghanistan: counterterrorism, counternarcotics, migration control, and the safe return of detainees held by the Taliban. Advancing these is fraught with challenges. Complicating matters further is a fifth, overarching concern—a moral obligation to protect human and women’s rights and preserve the gains from NATO’s 20-year intervention. Although promoting human rights was never the original aim of the U.S. intervention, and only part of European engagement, it has now become central to both genuine concerns and domestic political maneuvering.