Why Donald Trump Must Engage the Taliban

The Diplomat, in a recent analysis, explores why U.S. President Donald Trump should consider engaging with the Taliban. With Trump’s return to the White House, he has a renewed opportunity to reshape U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan and finally bring an end to the country’s “forever wars.” The article stresses the need for pragmatic diplomacy and strategic engagement with the Taliban, outlining both the challenges and opportunities this approach could present.

DIDPress: When Donald Trump assumed the presidency for a second term in January 2025, he pledged a radical departure from the interventionist foreign policies that had dominated U.S. strategic thinking for decades. “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end,” he declared. Today, with Trump back in the White House, a striking question looms large over U.S. foreign policy: Can the man once dubbed a disruptor now become a peacemaker, particularly in the place where the United States’ longest war was fought — Afghanistan?

Trump’s return to office signaled a bold peace agenda across the Middle East and Eurasia. His administration has pursued diplomacy, brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, dialogue between Russia and Ukraine, engaging Iran and the Houthis, and facilitating a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. On his four-day Gulf visit,  Trump met with Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh — a move that underscored his preference for direct engagement. If the U.S. can engage al-Sharaa, then surely it must also explore strategic dialogue with the Taliban, Afghanistan’s de facto rulers.

Trump positions himself as an anti-war president and a realist nationalist, prioritizing deals over deployments. His greatest foreign policy challenge lies in Afghanistan, where President Joe Biden’s withdrawal marked a humiliating U.S. retreat. The country has since become a case study in abandonment: a collapsed republic, frozen reserves, Taliban consolidation, eroding civil liberties, and widespread hunger, repression, and isolation.

Afghanistan’s Quagmire: A Superpower’s Lingering Shadow
The U.S. war in Afghanistan cost both in blood and treasure. Despite 20 years of investment, the Taliban now rule again, women’s rights have evaporated, and the country teeters on the edge of humanitarian catastrophe. Nearly 29 million Afghans remain in need of urgent assistance, with nearly 6 million internally displaced.

Engagement has been minimal. The Taliban remain unrecognized by any major power. Sanctions remain in place. Afghan reserves worth nearly $7 billion remain frozen and are still inaccessible. Women and girls are banned from education beyond sixth grade and most forms of employment. The Afghan economy has contracted by 27 percent since 2021.

Yet despite this bleak picture, there is an opening — a moment for calculated, incremental engagement. Trump, who first initiated direct talks with the Taliban in Doha in 2018, could reclaim that process. Reopening dialogue would not mean legitimizing Taliban rule unconditionally, but it would mark a return to pragmatic diplomacy.

What Would Engagement Look Like?
Efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and restore the United States’ strategic credibility must begin by addressing the core demands of those involved in its future. A sustainable diplomatic path requires reconciling the aspirations of three key actors: the Afghan people, the Taliban, and the international community. Although their goals diverge, they are not irreconcilable. Decisive U.S. leadership can support a strategic reset based on pragmatism, not idealism.

The Taliban seek three outcomes: removal from sanctions lists, access to frozen foreign reserves, and formal recognition of their government. These are not new demands; they are existential ones. Yet, granted without reform, they risk empowering a regime that governs through exclusion and repression.

In contrast, the Afghan people, especially women and youth, demand what was promised but never delivered: fundamental rights, freedom of expression, education without indoctrination, and a government that reflects Afghanistan’s diverse identity. For millions, this is not about diplomacy — it is about daily survival under a regime that has erased their agency.

The international community has its own non-negotiables: Afghan soil must never again become a haven for terrorist groups; narcotics production must be curtailed; and a more inclusive government must emerge. The task before Washington is not to mediate these agendas passively, but to architect a framework where trade-offs can occur without betraying core values.

This framework should begin with the appointment of an empowered special envoy to engage directly with the Taliban, regional players, and credible Afghan civil and political voices. Crucially, this approach must reject the flawed subcontracting model that has long outsourced Afghanistan policy to Pakistan. That model has squandered U.S. leverage, emboldened spoilers, and deepened Afghan mistrust. The time has come to abandon it.

The path forward lies in mutual concessions, implemented in phases. The first stage could involve easing targeted sanctions in exchange for tangible human rights improvements, like reopening girls’ schools or reinstating women in the workforce. Subsequent phases might tie access to frozen funds to reforms in governance and transparency. Deeper changes — such as the formation of an inclusive political government, and guarantees of civil liberties — would open the door to broader international engagement. Each step must be benchmarked and verified by neutral third-party actors like the United Nations or the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

But no settlement will succeed if it excludes Afghanistan’s civil society, youth leaders, technocrats, and diaspora. A Taliban-only arrangement will repeat past failures of exclusionary peace efforts. The risk of abandonment is not only a moral failure but is a geopolitical miscalculation. Inaction will allow China, Russia, and others to fill the vacuum with their own security and economic frameworks.

Trump’s deal-making reputation makes him uniquely positioned to push such a recalibration. Engagement does not mean capitulation. It means designing a new equilibrium based on shared interests and strategic necessity. For Trump, it is an opportunity to correct the course of a war he began to end, but never got to finish.

Why Engage the Taliban?
Trump’s broader foreign policy approach has emphasized transactional relationships, burden-sharing, and strategic disengagement. As he stated in Riyadh, he rebuked U.S. foreign policy elites, arguing that conflict resolution must be rooted in local dynamics.

This is the doctrine that could guide a new Afghan strategy. Unlike past administrations that depended on Islamabad, Trump could take a direct, U.S.-led approach. Unlike Biden, he would not approach the Taliban through layers of bureaucratic caution. The goal is not to reward repression, but to test whether the Taliban can be pressed for concessions that benefit Afghans.

Critics equates engagement with appeasement. But two decades of war and four years of isolation failed to yield progress. Meanwhile, the Taliban are gaining legitimacy through deals with China, Iran, and Central Asian states. They’ve attended regional summits in Moscow, Tashkent, and Beijing — without the U. S. present.

Meanwhile, Afghan civil society and technocrats remain divided, lacking a unified opposition, leaving the Taliban in control. We must engage with the reality we have, not the one we wish existed.
If the U.S. remains absent, it risks becoming irrelevant in a region that still defines the crossroads of Eurasian power. Measured, conditional engagement is the only way to shape outcomes.

Conclusion: A Realist Path Forward
Trump has made ending America’s “forever wars” central to his political identity. Afghanistan represents the most unfinished chapter of that story. While Biden ended the war, Trump could resolve its aftermath.
Re-engaging Afghanistan would align with his “America First” logic: reducing terror threats, ending aid dependency, and reasserting U.S. influence in a vital region bridging Iran, China, and Russia. Moreover, it would reclaim a peace process he started but never closed.

This is more than a legacy issue — it’s a test of strategic vision.

Afghanistan may be inconvenient, exhausting, and politically radioactive. But it remains central to U.S. global credibility. A Trump second term offers a narrow but crucial window for re-engagement — not through war or nation-building, but through pragmatic, conditional diplomacy.

The Taliban, for all their intransigence, face internal fractures, resentment, and external dependencies. The U.S., despite its fatigue, still holds unmatched tools: recognition, sanctions relief, financial leverage, and the power to convene allies.

For a president seeking redemption and a lasting legacy, Afghanistan is not just the war to end but the peace to make.