Republicans Mad at Trump for Sending $45 Million to Taliban

The Cash Keeps Flying to Kabul

On December 8, 2025, a chartered plane landed in Kabul carrying $45 million in U.S. cash. Anti-Taliban activist Amrullah Saleh reported the shipment, and within hours, Republican lawmakers were demanding answers. Tennessee Rep.

Tim Burchett fired off a post urging the Senate to pass his bill blocking funds to the Taliban. Conservative commentators called it a betrayal of the “America First” agenda.

The controversy reopened wounds from the 2021 withdrawal, and the question at its center is one the government still hasn’t answered clearly: where does all this money actually go?

Burchett Demands Senate Action Now

Rep. Tim Burchett has been fighting this battle since 2023.

His “No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act” passed the House in June 2025 with no objections, but the Senate hasn’t touched it.

The bill would force the State Department to develop a strategy blocking aid from reaching the Taliban and require detailed reports on how cash assistance programs prevent the group from accessing funds.

Burchett told reporters that Secretary of State Marco Rubio agreed to work with him on cutting off all Taliban funding, but he wants the legislation on the books.

$7 Billion in U.S. Gear Left Behind

When the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan in August 2021, it left behind a staggering amount of military equipment.

A Pentagon report confirmed that $7 billion worth of gear remained in the country, including 78 aircraft, more than 40,000 vehicles, and over 300,000 weapons.

The Taliban paraded Humvees and American rifles through Kabul, and some of those weapons have since turned up in Pakistan in the hands of militants.

The Defense Department says there’s no realistic way to retrieve any of it.

13 Service Members Killed at Abbey Gate

On August 26, 2021, an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated explosives at Abbey Gate outside Kabul’s airport, killing 13 American service members and around 170 Afghan civilians.

It was the deadliest day for U.S. troops in Afghanistan in over a decade.

The attack happened during the frantic evacuation as thousands of desperate Afghans crowded the airport gates.

In March 2025, the Trump administration announced it had captured an ISIS-K planner responsible for the bombing and brought him to the U.S. for prosecution.

UN Flies $3 Billion in Cash to Kabul

Since the Taliban took over, the United Nations has shipped nearly $3 billion in cash to Afghanistan for humanitarian aid.

The money arrives as shrink-wrapped hundred-dollar bills flown from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to Kabul International Airport, sometimes $40 million at a time.

The UN says it has to send physical cash because Afghanistan lacks the banking infrastructure to wire funds. The Taliban-controlled central bank confirms each deposit on social media.

Inspector General Couldn’t Rule Out Taliban Funding

In April 2023, John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, delivered a blunt assessment to Congress.

He testified that he could not assure lawmakers or American taxpayers that U.S. money wasn’t funding the Taliban.

A 2024 report from his office confirmed that at least $10. 9 million in U.S. aid had reached the group through taxes and fees the Taliban collects from aid organizations operating in the country.

Sopko’s office has since closed after nearly two decades of monitoring Afghanistan spending.

Taliban Runs the Central Bank

Here’s how the money flows. International aid groups receive U.S. dollars, then must convert them to afghanis to pay local workers and expenses.

They use private money exchanges, which purchase afghanis from the Da Afghanistan Bank. That central bank is controlled by senior Taliban leaders, including officials on U.S. terrorism watchlists.

A 2024 inspector general report found the bank has no systems to prevent terrorism financing or money laundering. Every dollar that enters the country eventually touches Taliban-controlled institutions.

State Department Denies Direct Funding

The State Department has consistently denied that American tax dollars go directly to the Taliban.

A spokesperson said in 2024 that the U.S. could not be more clear: it does not provide funding to the group.

Officials point out that aid flows through international organizations and NGOs, not the Afghan government.

But that distinction matters less when the Taliban controls the banking system and collects taxes from every organization operating on Afghan soil.

The gap between “direct” and “indirect” funding has become the central debate.

Women Erased from Afghan Public Life

The Taliban has systematically stripped women of their rights since 2021. Girls cannot attend school past sixth grade.

Women are banned from universities, most jobs, gyms, parks, and public baths.

A 2024 law requires women to cover their faces and forbids them from raising their voices in public or looking at men who aren’t relatives.

In December 2024, the Taliban banned women from medical training, which means Afghanistan will eventually run out of female healthcare workers in a country where many women cannot be treated by men.

ICC Charges Taliban Leaders with Crimes Against Humanity

In January 2025, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief judge Abdul Hakim Haqqani.

The charges: crimes against humanity through the persecution of Afghan women and girls. The ICC cited the systematic denial of education, employment, freedom of movement, and control over their own bodies.

The Taliban rejected the ruling, calling it a violation of national sovereignty and religious traditions. ICC member states are obligated to arrest the two if they enter their territory.

House Passed the Bill, Senate Won’t Vote

The “No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act” sailed through the House on a voice vote with no objections.

The bill requires the State Department to identify governments and NGOs supporting the Taliban, develop strategies to cut off that support, and report on safeguards preventing the group from accessing aid money.

But the Senate has taken no action. Burchett has pushed for months, enlisted conservative media figures like Shawn Ryan to amplify the issue, and confronted then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a heated December 2024 hearing.

The bill sits waiting.

The Money Keeps Flowing

The U.S. remains the largest donor of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, providing about $2. 6 billion since the 2021 collapse.

Half of the country’s 40 million people need urgent assistance, and 12 million face food insecurity. Cutting off all funding would cause mass starvation.

But critics like Burchett argue that continuing to send cash without real oversight means American taxpayers are bankrolling the very regime that harbors terrorists and oppresses women. The next shipment will arrive in Kabul soon. It always does.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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