U.S. dials back some sanctions on aid to ease crisis

The Biden administration on Wednesday took steps to ease the pressure that sanctions on the Taliban are having on Afghanistan, as the combination of the pandemic, a severe drought, the loss of foreign aid and frozen currency reserves have left the country’s fragile economy on the brink of collapse.

The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has put the Biden administration on the defensive three months after the Taliban assumed power and U.S. and international forces left the country. A thicket of U.S. and international sanctions that were designed to cut the Taliban off from the international financial system have left the entire country with a cash shortage, crippling banks and businesses and sending prices soaring.

The United States does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Following the group’s takeover of the country this year, the Biden administration froze $9.5 billion of Afghanistan’s foreign reserves, stopped sending shipments of dollars to Afghanistan’s central bank and pressured the International Monetary Fund to delay plans to transmit emergency reserve funds to the country.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that it was issuing new “general licenses” that would make it easier for nongovernmental organizations, international aid groups and the U.S. government to provide relief to the Afghan people while maintaining economic pressure on the Taliban.

“The United States is the largest single provider of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan. We are committed to supporting the people of Afghanistan, which is why Treasury is taking these additional steps to facilitate assistance,” Wally Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, said in a statement.

The general licenses allow financial transactions involving the Taliban and members of the Haqqani network as long as the money is used for things such as projects to meet basic human needs, civil society development and environmental and natural resource protection.

The Biden administration is walking a delicate line between trying to provide relief to the people of Afghanistan and keeping economic pressure on the Taliban as leverage to prevent human rights abuses and terrorist activity.