When the Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the governments of the Central Asian states, with the exception of Turkmenistan, were openly hostile to the Afghan militant group. But when the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, the Central Asian governments, with the exception of Tajikistan, found common ground with the Taliban by establishing business relationships.

This approach has not only helped prevent tensions growing between the Taliban and Central Asia, it has also proven quite lucrative for Central Asian exports.

However, the Taliban are about to suffer a serious financial setback, and the question will be whether this Central Asian-Afghan relationship founded on business ties will be affected if business is bad.

Exports to Afghanistan

There was almost no infrastructure connecting Afghanistan and Central Asia when the Taliban were chased from power in late 2001. However, during the nearly 20 years that US-led foreign forces were present in Afghanistan, new links between Central Asia and Afghanistan were established.

One of the most important connections was electricity.

Power transmission lines were built from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. Those three Central Asian countries now supply some 80% of Afghanistan’s electricity imports.

After the 2021 change of government in Afghanistan, the three Central Asian states continued to export electricity to Afghanistan. The move was particularly significant for Tajikistan, the Central Asian country that continued to view the Taliban as a threat.

In 2022, the Taliban’s first full year back in power, Tajikistan sold some $72.8mn of electricity to Afghanistan. That was $14.9mn more than it sold in 2021. During the first 10 months of 2024, Tajikistan’s electricity sales to its southern neighbour came to more than $80mn.

Also in 2022, Uzbekistan’s electricity exports to neighbouring Afghanistan totalled some $82.5mn. In 2023 that figure grew to $91.18 million.

As regards another neighbour, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan imported Turkmen electricity worth $64mn in 2023.

There were concerns in late 2021 that the Taliban might not be able to pay for all the electricity Afghanistan was receiving. In early October 2021, Afghanistan owed its three northern neighbours and Iran a combined $51mn for electricity. By May 2022, more than $100mn was owed to just Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The Taliban vowed to pay their electricity bills and indeed seem to have accomplished this.

In February 2024, Afghanistan’s electricity utility, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), said that since August 2021, it had made electricity payments totalling $627mn to its Central Asian suppliers and Iran.

Tashkent confirmed at the time that Afghanistan had paid all but some $1.2mn of its debt to Uzbekistan for electricity supplies.

Before the end of 2024, Afghanistan reached agreements with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for electricity supplies through 2025.

The Central Asian trio are all working on projects to increase their electricity exports to Afghanistan. Additionally, work has resumed on the Central Asia-South Asia-1000 (CASA-1000) power transmission line. It went through a temporary suspension after the Taliban’s return to power.

CASA-1000 aims to have hydropower plants in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan supply 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity to Pakistan and 300 MW to Afghanistan annually.

Kyrgyzstan’s energy ministry said at the end of May 2024 that Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan would start electricity exports via CASA-1000 to Pakistan this coming summer.There was no word as to when Afghanistan would start receiving electricity from CASA-1000.

The leading exporter of wheat and wheat flour to Afghanistan is Kazakhstan. In 2022, a year when Kazakh-Afghan trade totalled around $988mn, Kazakhstan exported wheat flour worth some $554mn and grain worth some $194mn to Afghanistan.

Kazakhstan’s Grain Union reported in November 2024 that during September 2023 to August 2024, the largest buyer of Kazakh wheat flour was Afghanistan at $336mn.

New US policy

Now to the rub. It is money from foreign aid flows that helps Taliban-ruled Afghanistan pay for the electricity, wheat and other food and construction materials received from Central Asia – but the biggest donor of this aid just suspended its financial help for Afghanistan.

Taliban fighters ride a captured US Humvee through streets of Kabul (Credit: VOA).

On the eve of his inauguration for a second term as president of the United States, Donald Trump spoke about aid to Afghanistan.

Trump said that during the hasty withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan under his predecessor president Joe Biden, some $7bn worth of US military equipment was left behind.

“Tell them [the Taliban] we’re not going to give them the [aid] money unless they give back our military equipment,” Trump warned.

After his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order to halt all US foreign development assistance for 90 days while an assessment of programmes was conducted.

On January 24, the US State Department issued a “stop-work” for all foreign assistance.

The US has been the leading humanitarian assistance donor to Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power, providing some $2.1bn, including $855mn in 2024 alone.

Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the suspension “will have disastrous consequences immediately” for the Afghan population.

Foreign finances are indispensable in Afghanistan’s ability to import its basic needs, such as food and electricity.

There is little chance that the Taliban will return the American military equipment. They have in fact for the past three years been demanding Tajikistan and Uzbekistan “return” several dozen military planes and helicopters flown to the countries when the former US-supported Afghan government crumbled. The US government has consistently stated that those planes and helicopters are US property and will never be given to the Taliban.

In August 2024, US Ambassador to Uzbekistan Jonathan Henick announced that most of the aircraft in Uzbekistan would be given to the Uzbek government.

Taliban Defence Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khwarazmi asserted that the US had no right to give Uzbekistan the aircraft and repeated the Taliban demand that Uzbekistan and Tajikistan send the warplanes and helicopters back to Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban are unlikely to give up the US military hardware in Afghanistan, it appears the US aid to Afghanistan will not be renewed when the 90-day suspension of foreign aid expires.

Can I pay you later?

The loss of US financial aid means the Taliban must cut back on spending, including on imports, and might have to resort to asking the Central Asians for patience on repayment.

The three Central Asian countries exporting electricity have already shown tolerance in waiting for such debt to be settled, but soon payment delays might be rather longer than were experienced in 2021-2022.

Afghanistan, meanwhile, cannot do without the food it imports from Central Asia. If Afghanistan cannot pay for this food, then there are other countries, particularly some Arab states, that are already expanding their food imports from Central Asia and can pay.

The potentially good news for the Taliban is that construction of the Qosh-Tepa canal in northern Afghanistan is progressing. It seems on schedule to start operating in 2028.

Irrigation waters provided by the canal will open up some 550,000 hectares of new farmland to help feed Afghanistan’s people. A difficulty is that it will also take water from a river that Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan use for agricultural purposes, reducing agricultural output in those two countries and likely triggering a resettlement of tens of thousands of people.

There are proposed trade network projects involving Afghanistan and the Central Asian states that preserve levels of cooperation between the Taliban and their northern neighbours.

All parties have a mutual security concern in the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP, or ISIS-K),  a jihadist militant group based in Afghanistan that threatens the Taliban and the Central Asian governments.

However, the relationship between the Taliban and these governments is not built on trust, but on immediate mutually beneficial trade cooperation. And a relationship founded on business interests is likely to suffer when the customer runs short of money.