President Trump on officers related to Afghanistan withdrawal and abandoned military equipment

Grok 2 generated image of President Donald Trump riding a theropod.

Politico reported that President Donald Trump hinted of his plans for senior officers involved with the Afghanistan withdrawal. During his first cabinet meeting, Trump addressed a variety of topics including issues with the U.S. military. On the topic of officers involved with pulling out of Afghanistan, Trump said that they were going to be largely gone. Trump also addressed his desire to recover the billions of dollars worth of military equipment in Afghanistan.

From Fox News: 

“We left billions, tens of billions of dollars worth of equipment behind, brand new trucks,” Trump said during his first Cabinet meeting Wednesday. “You see them display it every year, or their little roadway, someplace where they have a road and they drive the, you know, waving the flag and talking about America … that’s all the top of the line stuff. I think we should get a lot of that equipment back.”

The Taliban seized most of the more than $7 billion worth of equipment U.S. troops left in Afghanistan at the time of the withdrawal in August 2021, according to a Department of Defense report released in 2022.

Although U.S. troops removed or destroyed much of the major equipment that forces used during the drawdown, military equipment including aircraft, ground vehicles and other weapons were left in Afghanistan. The condition of these items remains unknown, but the Pentagon said in the report it would likely fail operationally without maintenance from U.S. contractors.

More details about how the U.S. would retrieve the equipment left in Afghanistan were not immediately available, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

President Joe Biden moved to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021, building upon plans from the first Trump administration in 2020 with Taliban leaders to end the war in the region.

Additional Reading:

McLeary, P. (2025, February 26). Trump signals more firings of military leaders. Politico. Link.

Stancy, D. (2025, February 26). Trump pushes to recover ‘billions of dollars’ of military equipment left behind in Afghanistan withdrawal. Fox News. Link.

Category: Big Pentagon, Donald Trump, Military issues