Will Trump be able to retrieve billions of dollars worth of abandoned US military equipment from Taliban?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : On the eve of his presidential inauguration, Donald Trump pledged at a public rally in Washington to strengthen the US military by getting back billions of dollars worth of equipment left behind in Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul in 2021.
57% : The Trump administration is yet to disclose its plans for dealing with the Taliban regime more broadly, including on topics of its international recognition, funding through the UN and other aid organisations, and the brutal rights situation in the country - particularly for women and girls.
50% : These cash shipments are handled very carefully through the UN and other non-governmental organisations to ensure a consistent financial drip to keep millions of Afghans alive through the aid, as the Taliban is prevented from international banking.
42% : Jason Campbell, a senior policy researcher at the RAND think tank in Washington, says the "billions of money" that Trump is referring to are the cash shipments sent by the US, as the single largest donor to the humanitarian causes in Afghanistan.
42% : "It underpins a desire in Trump to fix America's catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, because we are in this state where the Taliban have laid their hands on American military hardware," he says.
41% : On Tuesday, the Taliban clapped back at Trump and outright refused the suggestion it could return any of the leftover US military equipment.
40% : "This is all done to prevent what, ostensibly, Trump is at the very least insinuating that the US is sending $40m to the coffers of the Taliban every month and now they can do with it whatever they please," Campbell tells The Independent.
32% : Even if Trump is advised to negotiate with the Taliban to bring back American military equipment, the process will be far more arduous than it appears.
31% : "If we're going to pay billions of dollars a year, tell them we're not going to give them the money unless they give back our military equipment," Trump said, referring to humanitarian aid.
20% : This is also a time for Trump to claim to his followers and voters that he will undo the damage by the Biden administration, Shuja says.

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