President Biden raids Afghan funds
US president Joe Biden has set off a “firestorm of controversy” for his decision to seize $7bn in Afghanistan’s US foreigncurrency reserves, says Jack Detsch in Foreign Policy. The idea is to evenly split the money, which has been frozen since the Taliban came to power, between a trust fund for the Afghan people and for compensation for those killed or injured during the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. The White House argues that its plan will prevent the cash being “tied up in the courts for years”, noting that “as much as 80%” of the reserves “came from foreign-aid donations”.
None of that justifies the action, says The Guardian. It goes against the principle in US law that central-bank funds are supposed to enjoy diplomatic immunities. And a large portion of the money is from Afghan personal savings, which are needed to keep the economy functioning. Already, 98% of Afghan’s population is short of food and the UN is warning that its “financial system could collapse within months”.
It’s understandable that Washington doesn’t want the cash to go a brutal regime that’s “restricting girls’ access to schools and universities, preventing women from working, abducting protesters and journalists from their homes and killing opponents”, says Ruth Pollard on Bloomberg. Still, it should have thought about that before executing a “poorly planned” withdrawal with “what appears to be a complete lack of foresight about how to deal with the aftermath”. The US should instead focus on finding “workarounds” that would ensure that “an entire nation doesn’t slip into famine” while preventing funds being used to enrich the Taliban.