The highlights this week: U.S. President Donald Trump escalates a demand that the Taliban hand over Bagram Airfield , South Asian leaders arrive in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly —with a notable exception, and India implements large tax cuts .

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: U.S. President Donald Trump escalates a demand that the Taliban hand over Bagram Airfield, South Asian leaders arrive in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly—with a notable exception, and India implements large tax cuts.

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Trump’s Bagram Airfield Gambit

Over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump escalated a demand that he has made of the Taliban ever since the start of his second term. He warned in a Truth Social post that if the Taliban regime doesn’t return Bagram Airfield—a key U.S. military base during the war in Afghanistan—to the United States, “BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!”

Everything about Trump’s demand—the timing, the justification, and now the threat—is hard to make sense of. The Taliban reject the presence of foreign military forces on Afghan soil. While the regime has proved willing to make concessions to Washington to gain legitimacy, including the release of U.S. hostages, the Bagram issue is a red line. The Taliban rejected Trump’s demand on Sunday.

The timing of Trump’s statement was strange. U.S. hostage envoy Adam Boehler and former U.S.