Five years after the withdrawal of United States-led NATO troops from Afghanistan, the country's Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi has formally sought Washington's investment in mining, infrastructure, agriculture, and trade — while simultaneously calling for an end to economic sanctions that have crippled the war-ravaged nation's recovery. Muttaqi made the appeal in an interview with the Financial Times, signalling Kabul's intent to reframe its relationship with the West on economic rather than military terms.

The Scale of Unfinished Business

Two decades of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) presence through mid-2021 saw an estimated $145 billion appropriated for reconstruction and related activities in Afghanistan by June 2021, according to a report by the United States Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Of this, $88.6 billion went towards security, $36.3 billion for governance and development, $4.2 billion in humanitarian assistance, and $15.9 billion as programme administration costs.

Yet, as the SIGAR report noted, the critical question was not merely how much was spent, but 'how these resources were used and how effective they were' — an accountability gap that analysts say remains unresolved. Administrative corruption was flagged as a major challenge throughout that period.

Stalled Projects and Broken Promises

Among the most significant casualties of the post-2021 transition is the CASA-1000 (Central Asia-South Asia power project), a $1.2 billion initiative designed to transmit surplus electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. Launched in 2013, work on the Afghan section was suspended in September 2021.

The TAPI pipeline — the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas corridor intended to transport 33 billion cubic metres of natural gas annually from Turkmenistan's Galkynysh gas field — has similarly stalled. Construction of the Afghan section, officially launched in 2018, reportedly remained limited. In the transport sector, the Khaf-Herat railway, inaugurated in 2019, still awaits full integration into the regional rail network.

A Trillion-Dollar Resource Paradox

Despite the dysfunction, Afghanistan sits atop one of the world's most underexploited mineral endowments. According to assessments by US geologists and the former Afghan government, the country holds at least $1 trillion worth of mineral reserves, including copper, iron ore, niobium, cobalt, gold, and lithium. Since 2021, Kabul has reportedly announced more than $7 billion in mining investments involving countries including China and Iran.

Sanctions, along with political and human rights concerns, remain among the principal obstacles to attracting US capital, according to reports. This creates a paradox: the very resources that could stabilise Afghanistan are being developed by geopolitical rivals of Washington, partly because US firms are legally barred from engaging.

What Muttaqi Is Asking For

Muttaqi's ask is threefold: US investment, the reopening of the US Embassy in Kabul, and the withdrawal of sanctions. He has framed this as a forward-looking proposition, urging Washington to look beyond the last two decades of conflict toward future economic cooperation. However, he also stated that any return of American military forces to Afghanistan — including retaking control of Bagram Air Base — would be unacceptable.

Muttaqi, who operates under UN travel restrictions applicable to Taliban officials, has visited several countries with UN permission, including India, where a Taliban representative is stationed at the embassy in New Delhi without formal diplomatic recognition of the Kabul regime.

Growth That Depended on Aid

The economic picture under the previous administration was more complex than often portrayed. According to the World Bank, Afghanistan's economy grew at an average of more than 7 per cent annually from 2000 to 2019, with GDP rising by 180 per cent over that period. However, this growth was heavily aid-dependent — foreign assistance averaged nearly 60 per cent of GDP across the period and stood at around 45 per cent in 2019.

An Afghan economic analyst cited instability over the last two decades as the single most significant factor preventing key projects from reaching fruition. Experts have argued that poor resource management meant funds were not effectively directed to productive sectors. 'Security, effective governance, sustainable infrastructure, regional cooperation, and stronger domestic production and exports are also essential,' one report concluded.

Whether Washington recalibrates its posture toward Kabul — and on what conditions — will shape not just Afghanistan's economic trajectory but the broader contest for influence over one of Asia's most strategically located mineral frontiers.