President Trump Drops ‘Breaking News’ on Plan to RETAKE Bagram Airbase

President Trump has broken all kinds of records when it comes to keeping his campaign promises.

During his state visit to Great Britain, he announced that he is preparing to make good on another one.

He intends to retake Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Which according to President Trump sits within an hour’s flight of China’s primary manufacturing hub for nuclear weapons.

In many ways, this would be an incredibly strategic repair of the blunder made under Joe Biden’s lack of leadership.

Not only did Biden’s botched pullout of Afghanistan lead directly to the unnecessary deaths of 13 Americans when the Abbey Gate bombing occurred at the airport in Kabul…

But China was essentially handed control over the largest and most strategic military bases in the region as a result.

If President Trump can actually manage to somehow regain control of the Bagram Air Base, China will have to think even harder on every decision they make that harms the United States from this point on.

President Trump made the ‘breaking news’ announcement during a press conference alongside the UK’s Prime Minister:

🚨JUST IN: President Trump on Bagram Air Base:

“We’re trying to get it back, by the way, okay. That could be a little breaking news. We’re trying to get it back, because they need things from us.”

“We want that base back.”

“It’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear… pic.twitter.com/jrDho9X7Ns

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 18, 2025

That news isn’t really ‘news’ to anyone paying attention to President Trump’s consistency in saying what he intends to do, and then watched him do it time and time again.

On the other hand, the likelihood of Chinese control over the sprawling base would signal a far larger hurdle to overcome than even the imposing issue of convincing the Taliban to simply hand it over to us.

Which seems to be the avenue the President has been taking in order to put Bagram back under US military control, as reported by Fox News:

President Donald Trump on Thursday said his administration is “trying” to get the former U.S. Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan “back” from the Taliban.

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In remarks to the press while standing alongside U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the president criticized the handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan under President Joe Biden and said he had “a little breaking news.”

“We’re trying to get it back,” Trump said. “We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us.”

“We want that base back, but one of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” Trump added.

In March, Fox News Digital reported that White House hostage envoy Adam Boehler met in person with Taliban officials at the Kabul International Airport as he worked to secure the release of George Glezmann.

Sources confirmed this was the first direct meeting between a U.S. administration and the terrorist-run government since the collapse of Kabul in 2021.

Boehler, along with another U.S. envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, met with the Taliban’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, and reportedly discussed ways to “develop bilateral relations between the two countries, issues related to citizens, and investment opportunities in Afghanistan,” according to a Taliban statement.

Those diplomatic meetings with Taliban representatives alone might not lend any credibility to their being any negotiations surrounding Bagram.

But the fact that President Trump has consistently said for years that he intends on taking the base back, coupled with all the diplomatic interactions under his current term, does.

He began laying the groundwork making the case that the base is of strategic importance in countering China’s threat during the campaign.

Here’s a clip from August of 2024 of President Trump emphasizing how Biden’s pullout not only flipped the script on the pullout altogether.

But he also explained how China then took control of the base that would otherwise serve as the most strategic deterrent to any Chinese nuclear threat:

Donald Trump in Asheboro, NC just now:

“Now China is occupying Bagram [Air Force Base]. Bagram, being one hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.” pic.twitter.com/avBB3FuzEl

— Red Alert Florida (@RedAlertFlorida) August 21, 2024

And then in October of last year, less than a month from re-winning the Presidency, He brought the topic up again.

During a campaign event, he talked about the strategic importance of the airfield in that it could handle even the largest aircraft.

Again, he emphasized that China had taken control of Bagram in this clip shared by the Trump War Room account on X:

America spent billions of dollars building Bagram Air Force Base, which is one hour away from where China builds their nuclear weapons.

Kamala and Biden abandoned it to the Taliban.

America will not survive four more years of weakness on the world stage. pic.twitter.com/GhWPAlVX5c

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 14, 2024

As the President mentioned in one of those clips, the location of Bagram may have even been chosen specifically because of it’s strategic importance to China.

It was built in the 50’s by the Soviets to help them try to hold their foothold in Afghanistan, but during a time that they still intended on controlling the entire world. (I would argue… they still have that aim.)

That geopolitical strategic importance is at the heart of President Trump’s logic in attempting to regain control of Bagram, according to this report from The Telegraph:

The Bagram base was the largest operated by the US in Afghanistan and is strategically important in countering China’s growing influence in the region.

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The president has criticised Joe Biden over the tumultuous withdrawal from the region in 2021, complaining that American weapons and other assets were left in the hands of the Taliban.

Since then, Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed that Bagram is under Chinese control.

For nearly 20 years, the airfield was the heart of American military power in Afghanistan, a sprawling mini-city behind fences and blast walls just an hour’s drive north of Kabul.

Initially, it was a symbol of the US drive to avenge the 9/11 attacks, then of its struggle for a way through the ensuing war with the Taliban.

The Soviet Union built the airfield in the 1950s. When it invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to back a communist government, it turned it into its main base from which it would defend its occupation of the country.

There are plenty on social media and in political circles — those infamous left-leaning talking heads — who are scoffing at the idea.

Primarily, the pushback is centering on the mere implausibility.

Can President Trump actually regain control over one of the largest and most strategic air bases in the Eastern Hemisphere?

1. Inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan?
2. Presumably under direct Chinese military occupation?
3. Within an hour of China’s nuclear weapons manufacturing base?

That might sound like a tall order for any other President.

But anyone who puts money against President Trump’s ability to pull off the impossible…

Has not been paying attention.