Ranking US Congressman Says China Will Move in Afghanistan to Mine Rare Earth Minerals

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - China is going to move to Afghanistan to mine that country’s rare earth minerals following the US withdrawal, Ranking Republican on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul said in an interview with the Washington Post.

“China will be moving in. There are rare earth minerals in [Afghanistan]. I don’t know why we didn’t work with the Afghans to develop that, but we never did,” McCaul said on Tuesday. “And now, you’re going to have China going in mining these rare earth minerals."

McCaul said that as a result, China is the winner and the United States the loser in this situation as are the Afghan people.

"[T]he Taliban* will have a huge windfall profit from this that they’ll put into terrorist financing,” he added.

.@RepMcCaul says, “China has already recognized the legitimacy of the Taliban… Now you’re going to have China going in mining these rare earth minerals, and they’re the winner… The Taliban will have a huge windfall profit from this that they’ll put into terrorist financing.” pic.twitter.com/NVtMqJfo3L

— Washington Post Live (@PostLive) August 17, 2021

In 2017, former US President Donald Trump met with then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani agreed there were opportunities for US companies to rapidly develop Afghanistan’s rare-earth minerals as a way to offset the costs of the war there.

However, a report written by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction in August of 2018 said those ambitions failed to materialize as the US "extractive sector programming" stayed relatively minimal.

After a weeks-long offensive upon large cities, launched after the start of foreign troop withdrawal, the Taliban took over Afghanistan and its capital on Sunday, prompting President Ashraf Ghani to resign and flee. The militants declared the two-decade war to be over.

*A terrorist organization banned in Russia