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Trump warns China may take control of Bagram Air Base, slams Biden for ‘surrendering’ in Afghanistan

Trump warns China may take control of Bagram Air Base, slams Biden for 'surrendering' in Afghanistan 2

Donald Trump claimed that President Joe Biden ‘surrendered’ to Afghanistan by withdrawing troops in the midst of the Taliban seizing the country in August and warned that China could now take the Bagram Air Base.

‘What they did with the so-called withdrawal, which was really a surrender, what they did, it was the most embarrassing, horrible thing, and I don’t know that we ever psychologically recover from that,’ Trump told Fox News in an interview published in a Sunday report.

The former president said that even though he was planning a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan during his presidency, he would have maintained a presence and hold at the Parwan Detention Facility—a military prison on the Bagram Air Base.

He said doing so would have helped ensure that China did not take hold of the base and that prisoners did not escape.

‘We would have kept Bagram because it is next to China,’ Trump explained to Fox. ‘And it is one hour away from their nuclear facility, and we gave that up too.’

‘And now China’s going to take over Bagram, in my opinion,’ he continued.

Trump said Biden’s bungled withdrawal, which led to 13 U.S. troop deaths, thousands of stranded Americans and allies and a swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, is now being ignored.

‘They don’t talk about it anymore. They don’t talk about it, purposely,’he said. ‘It was so bad that it was killing him. Two, three days after it ended, they stopped even mentioning it.’

Donald Trump called Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan a 'surrender' and warned removing a presence from Bagram Air Base could lead to China taking control

Donald Trump called Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan a ‘surrender’ and warned removing a presence from Bagram Air Base could lead to China taking control 

Despite the disaster surrounding the withdrawal, which immediately led to the Taliban taking over the Afghan government and military, Biden’s team has insinuated that they made no mistakes in their course of action.

The president’s team maintains that no one predicted the takeover would happen so swiftly without U.S. troops presence in the country.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday that the administration believes the U.S. is in a better position being out of Afghanistan than it would have been in continuing the mission there.

‘The fundamental decisions— the decision to leave, the decision to continue the drawdown over the course of the summer, and the decision to ultimately execute on this contingency plan and run this evacuation up through August 31 — the president has stood by those decisions,’ Sullivan said.

He added: ‘We stand behind those decisions, and we believe that the United States’ national interests are better secured by being out of Afghanistan today than if we were still in Afghanistan today.’

Trump told Fox during his interview that he holds ‘the generals responsible’ for the bungled withdrawal and deaths of 13 U.S. military members ‘because they should have never allowed that to happen.’

‘They must have been able to talk [Biden] into reason,’ Trump said. ‘But you have to hold them responsible also for allowing that to happen.’

Zakaria pointed out that the middle of the withdrawal in August was the point where Biden’s poll numbers started to take a sharp decline.

According to a presidential average approval rating from FiveThirtyEight, August 30 was the first time Biden’s disapproval surpassed his approval rating with a margin of 47.5 per cent to 47.2 per cent.

On October 20, Biden’s disapproval surpassed 50 per cent.

The Biden administration removed all U.S. forces from Bagram in July.

The Pentagon announced in August that the Taliban had freed ‘thousands’ of ISIS-K prisoners from the prison on the base.

Trump brokered a deal with the Taliban during his administration for a troop withdrawal in May 2021.

‘Don’t forget, I’m the one that brought it down to 2,500 troops,’ Trump said to Fox. ‘I would have been out too, but we would have been out with strength. We would have come out with strength.’

Trump said: ‘It was time to get out, but the way he got out was such a disaster.’

‘We would have gotten all the people out, we would have brought all of our equipment out, we wouldn’t have had dead soldiers, we wouldn’t have soldiers missing arms and legs—because people don’t even talk about that—we lost 13, but we have many that have been gravely wounded,’ Trump said in describing how a withdrawal under his leadership may have gone.

‘None of that would have happened,’ he said in reference to dead servicemembers and stranded Americans and allies – as well as the Taliban takeover in the matter of days after the withdrawal. 

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