Afghanistan is facing a major economic and humanitarian crisis, and the U.S. has it within its power to prevent at least part of the approaching disaster.
The Biden administration’s decision to freeze nearly $10 billion in Afghan government assets has put an already impoverished, suffering country on a disastrous path to mass poverty and starvation, and it must move swiftly to release these assets. It is understandable that the administration does not want to be seen as “rewarding” the Taliban after it seized control this summer, but that is not a good enough reason to keep these funds frozen. Refusing to unfreeze these assets will impose a terrible punishment on tens of millions of ordinary Afghans. […]
Fatima Ayoub, the policy director at Crisis Action, was even more emphatic last month: “I don’t know [how] much louder or more often I can say this: because of U.S. restrictions on the banking sector the Afghan economy is collapsing. Millions of people will die if this problem isn’t fixed in order to get cash and liquidity into the system.” Läs artikel