Afghan minerals: Reason for U.S. to stay
President Donald Trump, searching for a reason to keep the United States in Afghanistan after 16 years of war, has latched on to a prospect that tantalized previous administrations: Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth, which his advisers and Afghan officials have told him could be profitably extracted by Western companies.
Trump has discussed the country’s mineral deposits with President Ashraf Ghani, who promoted mining as an economic opportunity in one of their first conversations. Trump, who is deeply skeptical about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, has suggested that this could be one justification for the United States to stay engaged in the country.
To explore the possibilities, the White House is considering sending an envoy to Afghanistan to meet with mining officials. Last week, as the White House fell into an increasingly fractious debate over Afghanistan policy, three of Trump’s senior aides met with a chemical executive, Michael N. Silver, to discuss the potential for extracting rare-earth minerals. Silver’s firm, American Elements, specializes in these minerals, which are used in a range of high-tech products.
In 2010, U.S. officials estimated that Afghanistan had untapped mineral deposits worth nearly $1 trillion, an estimate that was widely disputed at the time and has certainly fallen since, given the eroding price of commodities. But the $1 trillion figure is circulating again inside the White House, according to officials, who said it had caught the attention of Trump.
The lure of Afghanistan as a war-torn Klondike is well established: In 2006, the George W. Bush administration conducted aerial surveys of the country to map its mineral resources. Under President Barack Obama, the Pentagon set up a task force to try to build a mining industry in Afghanistan — a challenge that was stymied by rampant corruption, as well as security problems and the lack of roads, bridges or railroads.
None of these hurdles has been removed in the last eight years, according to former officials, and some have worsened. They warn that the Trump administration is fooling itself if it believes that extracting minerals is a panacea for Afghanistan’s myriad ills.
“It would be dangerous to use the potential for resource exploitation as a selling point for military engagement,” said Laurel Miller, a senior analyst at the RAND Corp. who served until last month as the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
But for Trump, as a businessman, it is arguably the only appealing thing about Afghanistan. Officials said he viewed mining as a “win-win” that could boost that country’s economy, generate jobs for Americans and give the U.S. a valuable new beachhead in the market for rareearth minerals, which has been all but monopolized by China.
China already has a $3 billion contract to develop a copper mine about 25 miles southeast of the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Officials said Trump was determined not to spend U.S. lives and treasure in Afghanistan only to watch China lock up its rareearth deposits, which are used to make products from wind turbines to computer chips.