Press Release
The People of the Country Must Stand United to Resist the Colonialist Project of the USA carried out under the Guise of Trade Agreements

The arrival of US Assistant Secretary of State Paul Kapur in Dhaka on Tuesday night has ignited serious concerns regarding Bangladesh's strategic future. This high-profile visit, occurring less than a month after the national parliamentary elections, represents the culmination of aggressive American lobbying to fast-track two controversial defense pacts: the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA). Portraying the visits solely from an economic and trade perspective is blatant hypocrisy or nativity.

President Donald Trump's recent letter to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, expecting "decisive action" on so-called "routine" defense agreements, masks the grave threat these pacts pose to Bangladesh's sovereignty — GSOMIA would subject our military installations to foreign scrutiny while ACSA could transform our territory into an undeclared American garrison, creating strategic bondage through dependence on US weaponry.

His visit is expressly intended to pressure the new BNP government into closing these deals immediately, leaving no room for deliberation. This military push follows a disastrous February 9 trade agreement rushed through in secrecy days before the election, which shackles Bangladesh with punitive conditions: prohibiting digital trade deals that might "undermine US interests," allowing Washington to cancel agreements with non-market countries like China or Russia, and committing $15 billion in US LNG, Boeing aircraft, and agricultural imports — holding our foreign exchange reserves hostage to American corporate interests while keeping the public in the dark through a non-disclosure agreement.

The timing and itinerary of Mr. Kapur's visit carry their own significance. His arrival in Dhaka follows a stop in New Delhi, revealing Washington's intent to recalibrate Bangladesh-India relations to serve American Indo-Pacific geopolitical interests. This raises the dangerous prospect that Bangladesh may once again find itself trapped between the competing ambitions of the US, India, and China — repeating the Hasina-era catastrophe, when serving US-India interests came at tremendous cost to our Ummah's sovereignty.

The new government must recognize that it cannot become a scapegoat in great power rivalries not of our making, and must exercise utmost caution in security discussions with Kapur. With "counterterrorism" prominently featured on his agenda, the government must be especially vigilant: security cooperation must never become a cover for persecuting Islamist figures and religious scholars under foreign direction — avoiding the previous regime's catastrophic mistake, which transformed the former Prime Minister Hasina into one of Bangladesh's worst tyrants.

We say that our rulers must abandon the misguided belief that political survival depends on Washington's approval, for US patronage is notoriously fleeting: as a senior Saudi official revealed amid the ongoing conflict with Iran, Washington abandoned Gulf allies hosting permanent US bases to protect Israel. History confirms the pattern: Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and the previous regime in Bangladesh were all discarded like 'tissue papers' after faithfully serving American interests. Even Iran's leadership now finds itself abandoned despite years of alignment with US strategic objectives. The government must refuse to serve as proxies for Western hegemony that seeks to convince us escape is impossible. True sovereignty demands leaders who fear Allah (swt) and the people's trust, not Washington's wrath - with the citizenry, not any foreign embassy, as their primary constituent. Allah (swt) says in the Qur’an:

[وَعَدَ اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مِنْكُمْ وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ لَيَسْتَخْلِفَنَّهُم فِي الأَرْضِ كَمَا اسْتَخْلَفَ الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِهِمْ]

“If they gain dominance over you, they would be to you as enemies and extend against you their hands and their tongues with evil, and they wish you would disbelieve.” [Al-Mumtahanah: 2].

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Bangladesh