Sacks predicted that, in the years after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal, China would cut deals with the Taliban to build a highway (major transport infrastructure) inside Afghanistan specifically to reach, extract, and export Afghan rare earth and other minerals to feed China’s economy.

What has happened so far:

1. China–Taliban resource deals did materialize, but mainly as mining/oil contracts, not transport infrastructure. In January 2023, the Chinese company CAPEIC (a CNPC subsidiary) signed a long-term, hundreds‑of‑millions‑dollar oil extraction deal in the Amu Darya basin with the Taliban government, and Chinese firms have been negotiating over the Mes Aynak copper mine and other minerals.(en.wikipedia.org) A 2025 analysis notes that Chinese firms now control a large share of active extraction projects under Taliban “security‑for‑minerals” arrangements, especially for rare earths and lithium—but this still concerns mining operations, not new roads or railways.(rareearthexchanges.com)

2. Afghanistan remains only marginally integrated into China’s Belt and Road transport network. A survey of Afghanistan–China relations notes that, as of 2023, Afghanistan’s security situation prevented it from becoming a major part of the BRI.(en.wikipedia.org) While there are long‑standing proposed rail corridors (e.g., Five Nations Railway Corridor, Trans‑Afghan Railway), they have moved slowly for years and are not yet built, let alone operating to evacuate Afghan rare earths.

3. Post‑2021, China and the Taliban have agreed only at a high level to extend existing corridors, not to build the kind of dedicated mineral‑export “superhighway” Sacks described. In May 2025, China, Pakistan, and the Taliban government announced that the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would be extended into Afghanistan and that CPEC would be linked to the proposed Trans‑Afghan Railway.(en.didpress.com) These are framework political agreements about future connectivity; there is no evidence of concrete, financed Chinese road or rail projects inside Afghanistan that are being built or contracted specifically to move Afghan rare earth/mineral output to China.

4. Key reporting indicates China is avoiding large infrastructure builds in Afghanistan, despite mining interest. A 2025 Washington Post report on the Taliban’s attempted highway through the Wakhan Corridor—envisioned as a route to China—notes that the Taliban are struggling to pave a short stretch with their own limited funds and explicitly states that, despite Taliban claims, China has “so far stayed away from undertaking large infrastructure projects” in Afghanistan.(washingtonpost.com) More generally, prior analyses of China’s role in Afghanistan stress that, beyond a few modest projects, Beijing has refrained from new large‑scale infrastructure there, even after signing a BRI MoU, due to security and political risks.(ecfr.eu)

Taken together, the core of Sacks’s prediction—that China would, in the near term, strike deals with the Taliban to build a major new highway/transport corridor inside Afghanistan whose primary purpose is to unlock and export Afghan rare earth and mineral wealth to China—has not occurred as of late 2025. China has signed notable mining and oil contracts and has talked about future corridor extensions, but it has not committed to or begun constructing the kind of dedicated, large‑scale Afghan transport infrastructure he described. Therefore, the prediction is best assessed as wrong.