WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday sharply criticized the previous administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, calling it “the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country” and asserting that “the disaster would have never happened” under his leadership.
Speaking at the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner on April 8, Trump said the U.S. evacuation from Kabul in 2021 was a strategic and humanitarian failure. He tied the withdrawal to a broader series of crises he claimed were avoidable — including the war in Ukraine and the rise in inflation — had he remained in office during that period.
“That would have never happened if I were president,” Trump said. “Afghanistan disaster would have never happened. Most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.”
He said that while he supported a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, his plan involved retaining Bagram Air Base, which he described as a strategic site near China. “I was going to keep it — not for Afghanistan, but because it’s one hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have it?”
Trump claimed that Bagram is now occupied by Chinese forces and criticized the decision to evacuate through Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul instead, describing it as chaotic and vulnerable.
“They left from a local little airport, which was crowded like crazy,” he said. “The bomb went off and decimated hundreds of people. Killed hundreds. We lost 13 soldiers. But we also had 42 or 48 horribly injured — arms, legs, face. Horribly injured.”
The reference was to the August 2021 suicide bombing near the Kabul airport during the final days of the U.S. evacuation, which killed 13 American service members and more than 170 Afghans.
“All because we had a stupid leader,” Trump said, referring to President Biden. “Should have never happened. Should have never been involved in that.”
Trump’s remarks come as he serves his second non-consecutive term in the White House and continues to spotlight the Biden administration’s foreign policy decisions as central to his own governing agenda.
