Taliban reaches out to Trump administration for mineral deals

Afghanistan’s Taliban government is making a play for something it has never managed to secure: a working economic relationship with the United States. Senior officials have publicly invited the Trump administration to invest in Afghanistan’s vast mineral reserves, reopen the US embassy in Kabul, and normalize diplomatic ties, a dramatic shift for a regime that fought American forces for two decades. Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi put it bluntly in an interview with the New York Times on August 14, 2026, declaring that “the chapter of war has come to an end” and urging Washington to treat Afghanistan as an investment destination rather than a security threat. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid followed up in late August with similar calls for embassy reopenings in both countries. What the Taliban is actually offering The pitch centers on Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, estimated at over $1 trillion. The country sits atop significant deposits of lithium, copper, iron ore, and rare earth elements, the kinds of resources that power everything from electric vehicle batteries to advanced semiconductors. US geological surveys identified many of these deposits years ago, and...