As U.S. President Donald Trump stepped into office for the second time, most of the attention on foreign policy seemed to revolve around China, Ukraine, and the crisis in the Middle East. Afghanistan seems to have been de-prioritized yet again, but for behind-the-scenes dealings that largely went unnoticed.

On January 21, two Americans freed by the Taliban landed on United States soil the day after an Afghan convicted of drug smuggling and extremism charges in the state of California reached Kabul. The swap had been brokered by the Biden administration in its final days in office, but the Taliban delayed the exchange until Donald Trump took power. The apparent goal was to create a bonhomie that could lead to a “normalization” of ties between the United States and Afghanistan. Not only is it a tall task, but the Islamic Emirate found out that the vision of the new Trump administration is strikingly different.

New U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio took to X threatening to put a “big bounty” on top Taliban leaders unless “more Americans” apparently held hostage by the Taliban are released. The bounty “maybe even bigger than the one we had on Bin Laden,” he added, referencing the former head of al-Qaida. 

While this may be in sync with the new U.S. administration’s America First foreign policy announcements, deeply colored by MAGA fervor, the first........

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