Inside Pakistan’s strikingly successful Washington charm offensive

When Donald Trump was re-elected president in November, officials in Pakistan feared the worst. During his first term, Trump had favoured India, its archrival, while accusing Pakistan of “deceit” and providing a safe haven for “terrorists.”

But more than six months into Trump’s second term — in the wake of the most severe military confrontation between India and Pakistan in decades — the countries have undergone a striking role reversal. US relations with India are in crisis amid mounting trade tensions and an increasingly personal spat between Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. All the while, Pakistani officials have quietly and successfully navigated Trump’s political world, fostering closer ties with the White House at a moment of global upheaval.

In a speech this month, Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, described his recent visits to the United States as “a sign of a new dimension” in the relationship.

Pakistan has recently secured one of the lowest US tariffs among major Asian economies, at 19 percent — well below the 29 percent rate initially threatened by US officials and far lower than the 50 percent tariff imposed on India for buying Russian oil.

Trump has boasted about joint plans to explore Pakistan’s “massive” oil reserves, and Pakistani officials have offered to partner with America on cryptocurrency ventures and the development of rare minerals. Last week, the US vowed closer counterterrorism cooperation with Islamabad and designated the Balochistan Liberation Army as a “foreign terrorist” organization.

“We couldn’t ask for more,” said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, the former chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Defence Committee. At a time when other countries are being forced to make concessions, he continued, “our legitimate interests are being preserved, protected and promoted.”

Even in Pakistan “it has come as a surprise to most people,” said Ayaz Amir, a political commentator — “and perhaps to most people in India, as well.”

In response to questions from The Washington Post, the White House press office said the president “is effective because he is able to maintain relationships while advocating for America First policies — such as reducing the massive trade deficit between the United States and India.”

Pakistani commentators and officials acknowledge that the bonhomie could be short-lived. Trump remains unpredictable, they say, and some fear his newfound fondness for Pakistan is tactical, aimed at forcing India to make concessions on trade. The economic stakes for Trump are low — Pakistan’s trade volume with the US amounts to about 5 percent of India’s. And Pakistan’s pitches to the president could fall apart in the face of a fragile economy and manifold security threats.

Geopolitically, India remains the more logical partner for the United States. Washington and New Delhi share the same main rival — Beijing — while Islamabad has become increasingly dependent on Chinese investment and defence technology. Beijing is building a nearly 2,000-mile road, rail and pipeline network across the country.

“There are a lot of question marks,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia analyst.

Pakistan’s early outreach to Trump after his re-election was in part driven by anxiety that he might seek the release of imprisoned opposition leader and former prime minister Imran Khan, according to analysts and former officials.

Late last year, Imran Khan’s supporters appeared to be making inroads into Trump’s orbit, unsettling Pakistan’s military, which is seen as the ultimate arbiter of the country’s politics. Then, in March, Reps. Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) and Jimmy Panetta (D-California) introduced a bipartisan bill calling for sanctions on Pakistani leaders and other officials over the “wrongful persecution and imprisonment of political opponents.”

Pakistan’s military deemed US outreach so crucial that it decided to oversee negotiations itself, according to three Pakistani officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists. Pakistan’s military did not respond to a request for comment.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi — seen here as having the military’s trust — rushed to Washington during the week of Trump’s inauguration to meet with members of Congress.

Pakistan also hired Javelin Advisors, a lobbying firm led by George A. Sorial, a long-standing executive at Trump’s businesses, and Keith Schiller, a former bodyguard for Trump who later served in the White House.

“We are aligned with the Administration and are focused on promoting peace by advancing and protecting the best interests of the United States and its allies,” Sorial said in response to questions about his work with Pakistan.

The Trump administration’s view of Pakistan appeared to shift in March after it contributed to the capture of a senior Islamic State official that US officials held responsible for a 2921 suicide bombing in Kabul that killed 13 American troops and about 170 Afghans. It earned the country a surprise mention in Trump’s March address to Congress, in which he praised Pakistani officials for “helping arrest this monster.”

Meanwhile, the country “very successfully tapped into Trump’s personal and family networks,” said Kugelman. World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company backed by the Trump family, signed a letter of intent with Pakistan’s Crypto Council in April, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office. The statement highlighted that the American delegation included Zachary Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, the New York real estate developer now serving as Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East.

US-Pakistan relations gained further momentum in May, analysts said, when the president announced his administration had brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after days of military escalation. Officials in Islamabad were quick to give Trump credit and announced they would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“That must have pleased the presidential ego,” said Amir, the Pakistani political commentator. “Pakistan instinctively knew how to respond to the protocol of the court of Donald Trump.” India, by contrast, denied that US mediation had sealed the truce, contributing to the falling-out between Trump and Modi.

“President Trump leaned on his relationships with both India and Pakistan to secure a ceasefire in a deadly conflict that could have gone nuclear without his involvement,” the White House said in its statement to The Post.

Weeks after the ceasefire, Trump invited Pakistani army chief Asim Munir to have lunch with him at the White House — a highly unusual private meeting between a US president and a foreign military chief, as well as a tacit acknowledgment of Munir’s growing political clout. The June meeting, in which Munir pitched Trump on access to Pakistan’s natural resources, was key to improved relations, the three Pakistani officials said.

“Trump is impressed by straight-shooting, smart-talking generals, not by deceptive double-dealers or politicians who say one thing and do the other thing,” said Mushahid.

Some former officials worry that Pakistan’s leadership has been blinded by its recent successes and is not attuned to the risks. “Flattery is not a strategy — it’s not long-term,” warned Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States.

Though Pakistan has made big promises, its ability to follow through is in question. The country has long dreamed of finding and extracting enough oil to become a regional energy powerhouse, but all efforts so far have failed. The country’s rare minerals are mostly located in dangerous areas that are difficult to access. And in a nation plagued by power outages, Pakistan’s cryptocurrency ambitions could easily falter.

The new pillars of US-Pakistan relations stand on “shaky ground,” Kugelman cautioned. “Pakistan may be hoping for more than it’s going to get from the US.”

But there is hope here that Pakistan can seize the moment and gain access to new American defence technology, including attack helicopters and naval equipment, said Masood Khan, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States until last year.

“We can’t go back to the golden years of the 1950s when we had very, very good relations,” Masood Khan said, but “we can … develop a paradigm which benefits both the United States and Pakistan.”–Washington Post