On 13 June 2024, Bangladesh’s current interim government, led by Dr Yunus, signed an NDA agreement with the United States. The explanation was a familiar one: urgency and the need to reduce “reciprocal taxes" imposed under the Donald Trump administration. But the way it was done matters as much as what was done. The agreement was rushed through without meaningful consultation with relevant stakeholders. And because it was a non-disclosure agreement, the public had no way to know what was promised, traded, or quietly conceded.

The government kept repeating one line: nothing in the deal goes against national interest. Yet it never answered the obvious follow-up. If there was nothing to hide, why was the public denied the right to see it? Later, when a draft leaked from Bangladesh’s National Board of Revenue, the government’s claim collapsed on contact with the text. This 20-page NDA did not read like a harmless confidentiality instrument. Page after page, Bangladesh’s interests were weakened. The authority to make decisions linked to national security, the economy, natural resources, and foreign relations was, in effect, handed over to a foreign state.

At the time the NDA was signed, media reports said the agreement included a plan to buy 25 Boeing aircraft and import wheat from the United States. Then, in August, Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin claimed that during discussions with US officials, they did not seem serious about selling Boeing aircraft. Biman Bangladesh Airlines, too, said it was not aware of any Boeing purchase plan. And yet, within just four months, Biman finalised a decision to buy 14 Boeing aircraft. That decision was taken at Biman’s board meeting on 30 December 2025.

Under Yunus’s interim government, work is now underway to finalise this massive, unnecessary procurement, valued at 37,000 crore TK, roughly 3 billion dollars. To speed up the process, on 27 August 2025, Commerce Adviser Sheikh Bashir Uddin was........

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