Afghanistan sits on mineral wealth estimated at more than US$1 trillion, including copper, lithium, gold, iron ore, rare earth elements, coal, and precious stones. Five years after reclaiming power, the Taliban are trying to turn this geological bounty into a diplomatic opening with the United States under President Donald Trump's transactional administration.
Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi has publicly welcomed US investment in Afghanistan's mining, infrastructure, agriculture, and trade sectors. After two decades of fighting American and allied forces, the Taliban now seek US capital to develop the country's untapped resources. Washington has quickly rebuffed the overture: the State Department says it has no plans to work with the Taliban on critical minerals, warning that investment could strengthen a regime responsible for repression at home.
But there is another question Washington should ask: if foreign money eventually flows into Afghanistan's mining sector, who inside the Taliban would actually control and profit from it? The answer is less straightforward than Kabul's investment pitch suggests. The Taliban may present a unified face to investors, but the political economy behind Afghanistan's mines is considerably more fragmented.
Provincial power contest
Afghanistan's mineral geography is highly dispersed. Badakhshan holds gold and precious stones. Logar contains the vast Mes Aynak copper deposit. Copper resources are found around Balkhab, while other strategically important deposits stretch across central, northern, and eastern Afghanistan. Many of these resources lie far from Kandahar, the political and ideological center from which Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has increasingly centralized Taliban authority.
This signals a fundamental contradiction in Afghanistan's emerging mineral economy. Political authority is being concentrated in one power center while much of the wealth lies beneath distant provinces and communities with little influence over how it is extracted or where revenues flow.
Kandahar is not the Taliban's only center of economic power. The Haqqani network, based in southeastern Afghanistan and led by Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, has developed its own economic and political influence. Its interests in minerals are not new; the network has historically been associated with revenue from mineral extraction and the transport, taxation, and cross-border trade connected to it.
Afghan mining expert Javed Noorani noted in 2022 that the Haqqani network was retaining substantial revenues from parts of the mining sector. More importantly, he suggested that competition over mining revenues could deepen divisions within the Taliban. That warning deserves new attention. Akhundzada's Kandahar-centered leadership has increasingly sought to centralize authority and revenue collection. Mining provides another potentially lucrative source of money, patronage, and political leverage. Control the border, and you can influence customs revenue. Control the mines, and you gain access to another stream of wealth.
For potential foreign investors, that distinction matters. A mining contract signed in Kabul does not by itself answer who exercises political, security, and economic power over the resource on the ground.
Badakhshan offers a warning
The struggle over Badakhshan, a mountainous northeastern province bordered by Tajikistan, China, and Pakistan, shows how this plays out. In June 2026, the Taliban reportedly deployed a newly formed force of roughly 1,000 personnel to the province amid tensions over its lucrative gold and precious-stone mines. Taliban sources from Badakhshan described the measures as part of an effort to weaken economically powerful local commanders and bring mineral resources more directly under Kandahar's centralized leadership.
Influential local figures were reportedly dismissed, arrested, or transferred, while officials trusted by Akhundzada and his inner circle replaced them. That intra-Taliban tension over who controls contracts, taxation, transport, and security raises largely unseen political risks for any foreign investor in Afghanistan's mineral resources.
Missing from much of this competition are the people who actually live above Afghanistan's mineral deposits. Afghanistan already has a long history of mineral extraction disproportionately enriching political and armed power brokers over local communities. Poorly regulated mining can damage agricultural land and water supplies, while unsafe operations expose workers to tunnel collapses and other hazards. Communities can therefore bear the environmental and social costs even when revenues flow elsewhere. That danger becomes greater when control of natural resources is intertwined with internal political competition. The result risks reproducing one of Afghanistan's oldest political problems: wealth extracted from the periphery to sustain power at the center.
Follow the mining money
The timing of Muttaqi's invitation to the United States is no doubt significant. The Taliban are attempting to transform Afghanistan's mineral wealth into an instrument of commercial diplomacy. They have already pursued mining agreements with foreign partners while presenting Afghanistan as open for business. The offer to Washington takes that strategy further.
Muttaqi has argued that US-Afghan relations should no longer be viewed through the lens of the past 20 years of war but through the possibility of future cooperation. Washington's response shows how difficult that will be. But the debate should not end with whether the US, now in hot pursuit of alternative sources of critical minerals and rare earths, might be tempted. The deeper issue is whether any foreign investment can be structured to avoid fueling internal Taliban rivalries and further marginalizing local communities. Without clarity on who controls the mines and who benefits, Afghanistan's mineral wealth may become not a path to stability but a new source of conflict. As the US and other nations seek to secure critical minerals, they should weigh the political risks that come with Afghanistan's underground riches.
