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On January 21, the United States struck a prisoners’ swap deal with the Taliban in which two Americans were exchanged for a Taliban member convicted on terrorism and drug trafficking charges in 2008. American citizens Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were swapped for Khan Mohammad, who had been serving a life sentence in a federal prison in California.
Reportedly the prisoners’ swap was finalized after two years of negotiation. During the course of those talks, the Taliban rejected multiple proposals that would also have included the release of American nationals George Gelzmann and Mahmood Habibi in exchange for Afghan national Muhammad Rahim, one of the few remaining prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nonetheless, both sides agreed to go ahead with the current deal.
The deal was brokered by the former Biden administration with Qatar as a mediator. Qatar hosted several rounds of negotiations between the Taliban and Washington and also provided logistical support in order to get the American citizens out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Likewise, Khan Mohammad was flown from the United States to Doha by U.S. officials.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the prisoners’ swap came after “extensive & productive negotiations between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the United States of America.” The ministry added, “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan consider[s] this exchange as a good example of resolving issues through dialogue, and is particularly grateful to the fraternal State of Qatar for its effective role in this regard.”
The de facto rulers of Afghanistan also view this swap as an opportunity to develop ties with the United States. In this context, the Taliban Foreign Ministry said, “The Islamic Emirate views positively steps taken by the United States that aid normalization & expansion of relations between the two countries.” However, there have been no concrete signs of an improvement in relations between the two sides.
It is of utmost importance to note the timing of the deal. The Biden administration reached the agreement at the end of its term right before handing power over to President Donald Trump. Notably, it was Trump’s first administration that signed the Doha Agreement with the Taliban in Kabul, which eventually brought them back into power after 20 years of war in Afghanistan. Biden’s outgoing national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, communicated the plan with Mike Waltz, Trump’s NSA. According to an unnamed Biden administration official, the Trump administration was “on board with this deal. They have acknowledged it and they have not objected.”
On the contrary, a similarly unnamed Trump official told CNN, “While we would not do the deal that the Biden administration did at the end, we are always happy to have two Americans home.”
Despite the Trump administration pushback on their approval of the swap, the new U.S. administration seems to be pushing for more such deals. Brian Hughes, the new National Security Council spokesperson, said, “The Trump administration will continue to demand the release of all Americans held by the Taliban, especially in light of the billions of dollars in US aid they have received in recent years.”
The Taliban are jubilant not only because of the deal in which they got their member released but also because of the incumbent administration in Washington, which they believe will be more amenable to working with the Taliban government. Taliban Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said soon after Trump’s victory in the presidential elections in November that his government in Kabul hoped that the Trump administration “will take realistic steps toward concrete progress in relations between the two countries and both nations will be able to open a new chapter of relations.”
The Taliban regime in Afghanistan is not recognized by any government. There, however, are over a dozen countries that have given the regime partial recognition by reopening and maintaining their diplomatic presence in the country. However, the United States maintains an Afghanistan Affairs Unit (AAU) in Doha, Qatar, as the U.S. diplomatic mission to Afghanistan since February 2022, with the U.S. embassy in Kabul shuttered. Through the AAU, Washington manages its diplomacy with Afghanistan, including consular affairs as well as working with partners, allies, and regional and international stakeholders to coordinate messaging to and engagement with the Taliban and administering humanitarian assistance.
The Trump administration will likely engage more directly with the Taliban in Afghanistan. A day before his inauguration, Trump indicated that Washington would cut its humanitarian funding to Afghanistan if the Taliban did not return the seized U.S. military equipment. Trump said, “They [the Biden administration] gave billions of billions of dollars to the Taliban. They gave our military equipment, a big chunk of it, to the enemy.”
Trump then added, “So we will give them a couple of bucks, [but] we want the military equipment back.” He was referring to the military equipment that the Taliban seized after the hasty and haphazard withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021. Taliban forces have been seen flexing with the equipment since the Kabul takeover.
Given the ambitions of the Trump administration to get more American nationals released from the Taliban’s custody, and get U.S. military equipment back, that implies more dialogue to come between the United States and the Taliban. However, Trump’s comments thus far have not touched on the central issues that prevented Taliban-U.S. engagement under Biden, from women’s rights to the lack of inclusive governance.