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What was Trump's stance on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and its impact on terrorism?
Executive summary
Donald Trump negotiated the 2020 Doha agreement that set a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and repeatedly framed withdrawal decisions as a choice between ending a costly war and tolerating risk; his administration said the Taliban pledged not to allow Afghanistan to be used against the U.S. [1] [2]. Critics and later U.S. reviews have held the Trump deal and the eventual pullout collectively responsible for constraining successors and contributing to the chaotic 2021 collapse that observers say aided Taliban control and undermined Afghan forces [3] [4].
1. Trump’s stated position: negotiate exit, prioritize “getting out”
Trump’s public and policy posture was to end America’s “forever wars” by negotiating directly with the Taliban and arranging a timeline for U.S. withdrawal — the February 2020 Doha deal is the centerpiece of that strategy and explicitly tied withdrawal to Taliban counterterrorism commitments [1] [2]. His administration framed those deals as a way to remove U.S. forces while extracting a promise that Afghan soil would not be used by groups to attack the United States [1].
2. Rhetoric vs. responsibility: Trump’s critics point to culpability
Several commentators, watchdogs and former advisers have argued that Trump bears at least partial responsibility for the later collapse because the Doha agreement effectively set the exit terms and timetable that constrained later administrations; the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and other reviews cite the 2020 deal as one of two critical events that doomed Afghan forces [3] [4]. Former national security figures such as H.R. McMaster say negotiating withdrawal terms with the Taliban was itself a strategic mistake that contributed to the outcome [5].
3. Security assurances and the terrorism question: promises on paper, debate in practice
The Doha agreement included Taliban commitments to prevent use of Afghan territory by groups threatening the U.S., and Trump and his allies pointed to that pledge as justification for withdrawal [1]. But the accountability and enforcement mechanisms were limited in practice; reviewers and analysts caution that pledges on paper did not prevent the Taliban’s resurgence or assure long-term prevention of terrorist safe havens, a central point of contention between defenders of the deal and its critics [3] [1].
4. Electoral and political framing: Trump used the 2021 exit as a campaign cudgel
After the chaotic August 2021 evacuation, Trump publicly criticized the Biden administration and described the U.S. withdrawal as embarrassing, while also asserting that under his watch the U.S. would have held on to key assets like Bagram air base [1] [6]. More recent public remarks show Trump calling the 2021 abandonment of equipment and bases “stupid” and blaming poor leadership, reflecting political positioning over who was to blame for the 2021 sequence [7] [8].
5. Policy follow-through and second-term posture: reclaiming bases and counterterrorism nodes
Reporting from 2025 indicates the Trump White House has actively discussed reasserting control over strategic sites such as Bagram Air Base to create intelligence and counterterrorism capabilities — a policy preference framed both as protecting U.S. security and as leverage against rivals like China — while staffers acknowledge such moves would effectively require renewed military presence and face legal and diplomatic limits tied to the 2020 deal [6] [8]. Analysts warn reoccupation could look like a re-invasion and would be politically and militarily costly [8] [9].
6. Competing interpretations of terrorism risk after withdrawal
One view holds that withdrawal risked allowing Afghanistan to again harbor transnational terrorist threats; critics link the Doha deal and the eventual troop exit to the Taliban’s return and a degraded Afghan security posture [3] [10]. Another view—reflected in some later commentary on the limits of re-intervention—suggests that fears of Afghanistan becoming an uncontested global terror sanctuary have not fully materialized to justify large-scale redeployment, and that political will at home for a new long-term mission would be weak [9] [6].
7. What the available sources do not settle
Available sources do not provide a definitive causal accounting that isolates Trump’s single-handed responsibility for post-withdrawal terrorism outcomes; they document that the 2020 deal set withdrawal terms and that subsequent events — and decisions by multiple administrations — shaped the final result [1] [3] [4]. Quantitative measures of terrorism trends directly attributable to the Doha deal versus later decisions are not specified in the supplied reporting (not found in current reporting).
8. Bottom line for readers
Trump’s stance combined a clear political commitment to negotiating a U.S. troop exit and reliance on Taliban assurances to reduce terrorism risk [1] [2]. Critics and official reviews counter that those negotiations and the timetable constrained later options and were a key factor in the collapse of Afghan forces and the messy 2021 exit, leaving unresolved questions about whether the policy reduced or increased long-term terrorism risk [3] [4].