From the year 2001 onwards, it may have happened less often that the issue of Afghanistan was not prominent in the presidential elections of the United States. In the election campaigns of the 2024 presidential election of this country, the candidates of both the Republican and Democratic parties have not addressed the situation in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule, and according to experts, these candidates, in order to gain popular votes, focus more on the two issues, with withdrawal of Afghanistan and the Doha Agreement.
A country (US) that was a strategic partner of Afghanistan for two decades, unlike the previous elections, in 2024 election campaigns no comments were made addressing the current fragile situation of Afghanistan.
Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, discussed more about the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the signing of the Doha Agreement. They raised these topics only to use it as a powerful tool to criticize and blame each other and use it as a play card in the election campaigns.
Does US elections have any impact on the situation in Afghanistan?
Both the candidates have not mentioned anything about Afghanistan, especially at the time when the girls were banned from going to schools and women prevented from workplaces. Both Harris and Trump did not even mention the situation of Afghanistan. What was important for them was the withdrawal of US troops and the Doha agreement.
It is a historic fact that the Doha agreement was signed during the presidency of Donald Trump and was implemented during the presidency of Biden. So they used this to blame each other, and now it seems that both of them don’t have any specific foreign policy for Afghanistan.
Therefore, it is important for the Afghan people to know that for the Americans, the interests of their own country are important. With this, either Trump or Harris will focus on Afghanistan.
Some believe that the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East have caused Afghanistan to be marginalized from the United States’ foreign policy agenda.
Afghanistan is somehow on the margins, on the margins even of foreign policy of the US. Today, America is paying more attention to Ukraine and Gaza, and other issues are not that valuable to them, and probably due to this low value, the Americans were pulled out of Afghanistan.
Trump and Harris both promised victory to their supporters.
According to the Reuters, the supporters and fans of Harris are optimistic about her victory, while Trump, referring to recent polls, said that he is optimistic about his victory.
“If we take our people out, it’s over,” Trump said at his final campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “There’s nothing they can do about it.”
On the other hand, according to Reuters, one of the reasons for the optimism of Harris’ fans is the announcement of the results of the poll on Saturday, which showed that she surpassed Trump.
In the end, whoever declared as the winner of the US election, nothing significantly will change in the situation of Afghanistan as the new US president will work for the interest of the US alone, and that is it.
