Trump Puts Pakistan Back On World Stage As Ties With India Fray

Standing before US-based Pakistanis in June at a dinner in Washington, Asim Munir beamed after meeting US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

Pakistan's most powerful army chief in decades told attendees that Trump had saved South Asia from catastrophe, crediting him with brokering a ceasefire that stopped a May clash with fellow nuclear power India, according to a person at the event, who asked not to be identified because it was private. Munir said he told Trump that Pakistan was ready for a new era of cooperation in areas like critical minerals and cryptocurrency after relations hit a fresh low under President Joe Biden, the person added.

A year ago, India was a central piece of the US's strategy to work with allies and partners to pressure China, with Pakistan largely an afterthought. Now US-Pakistan relations are on the rise as Trump hits India with high tariffs, upending more than two decades of US policy aimed at improving relations with the world's biggest democracy.

As Trump spars with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he's embraced Munir, the formerly obscure commander elevated to a national hero in the wake of the India clash. Pakistan lawmakers this month passed a constitutional amendment granting Munir, who holds the title of Field Marshal, lifelong immunity and control over all of the nation's armed forces, cementing his position as its strongest military leader since former dictator Mohammed Ayub Khan in the 1960s.

Trump now regularly praises Munir when he speaks about the India-Pakistan conflict, calling him a "great guy" and putting him on equal footing with Modi, who has rejected the US president's claims that he helped broker a ceasefire.

The shift in stance has revived Pakistan as a geopolitical power in the region. A close partner with China, which has poured money into the South Asian nation over the past decade, Pakistan signed a mutual-defense pact with Saudi Arabia in September and has mulled sending troops to the peacekeeping effort in Gaza.

Trump's shift more broadly has driven a wedge into what had been a largely bipartisan consensus in Washington to court India as a counterweight to China. Kurt Campbell, US deputy secretary of state in the Biden administration, told Bloomberg Television this month that "almost all of our strategic interests lie with India" and the "wholesale collapse" of relations between Trump and Modi would likely lead to some lasting damage.

At the same time, a healthy US-Pakistan relationship could also give the US leverage over India, according to Nisha Biswal, partner at The Asia Group and former US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs during the Obama administration. Ultimately, she said, "both relationships have to stand on their own merits."

"The extent to which the US can exert leverage and pressure on Pakistan, and has the relationship to do so in times of crisis, is an important aspect," she said. "You don't want a Pakistan that is impervious to US influence."

Across Pakistan, the shift in the nation's mood since the clash is palpable. Heroic portraits of Munir and other leaders adorn billboards, banners and magazine covers. Images of triumphant Pakistani aircraft downing Indian fighters are on display in government buildings in Islamabad as well as the atrium of the State Bank of Pakistan museum in Karachi. An artist's depiction of Pakistani warplanes zooming over a trio of battered Indian Rafale jets sits alongside historic rupee notes and portraits of graying central bankers.

In recent interviews with Bloomberg News, Pakistani officials in the government, the military and businesses described a sense of national renewal. Many see the India fight as an unqualified victory, backed by Islamabad's claims — denied by New Delhi but acknowledged by Trump — to have downed seven Indian fighters. The clash, they said, has united Pakistan, brought global prestige and opened new doors in world capitals.

"We defended ourselves and we won," Bilal Azhar Kayani, Pakistan's state minister of finance, said in an interview in Islamabad. "But in addition to that, the way we have conducted ourselves diplomatically in a changing and fluid global landscape has been commendable."

One outcome of the May clash has been even firmer alignment between Pakistan's military and civilian leaders, according to Jay Truesdale, chief executive at geopolitical risk consulting firm TDI and a former chief of staff at the US Embassy in Islamabad. That dynamic was underscored in September, when Trump hosted both Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the Oval Office at the same time.

"The way the Americans intervened and the outcome that took place, the Pakistanis can claim that they had a victory, and this has further galvanized the unity of effort," Truesdale said.

US officials say they aren't prioritizing Pakistan over India, and officials in Washington and New Delhi appear close to reaching a trade deal that would lower tariffs from 50% — among the highest rates in the world. "I don't think anything we're doing with Pakistan comes at the expense of our relationship or friendship with India, which is deep, historic and important," Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters last month.

Still, Rubio acknowledged an opportunity with Pakistan. "Our job is to try to figure out how many countries we can find, how we can work with on things of common interest," he said.

Pakistan and the US have been on-and-off partners since the Cold War, when Washington was looking for allies to stop the spread of communism. In 1971, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger used a Pakistani plane from Islamabad for a secret diplomatic mission to China. In the 1980s, Pakistan cooperated with the US to funnel support to Afghan insurgents battling the Soviet Union. Pakistan later provided logistical support in the US's so-called war on terror.

As China emerged as Washington's chief rival, successive administrations drew closer to India, and ties with Pakistan — a longtime friend to Beijing — fell by the wayside. US-Pakistan ties further soured after the discovery of Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani compound, leading to his death in a daring American operation in 2011.

This year saw a sudden reversal. In a speech to Congress in March, Trump praised Pakistan for arresting the alleged mastermind behind a bombing in Kabul in 2021 that killed 13 US troops. Then in May, when tensions between India and Pakistan exploded into a four-day armed conflict, Trump claimed he intervened and brokered a ceasefire, a boast that left Pakistan elated, but Indian officials fuming. Pakistan went on to nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, while Trump referred to Munir as "my favorite field marshal."

Officials in Islamabad meanwhile prioritized areas close to Trump, including cryptocurrency and counterterrorism.

During his June visit to Washington, Munir said he would work with the White House on cryptocurrency. Just months earlier, officials of World Liberty Financial Partners — a crypto venture with ties to the Trump family — signed an initial cooperation agreement. In July, Pakistan and the US reached a trade agreement that left the nation's goods with a 19% tariff, lower than other countries in Asia and well below India's levy.

Pakistan has been shoring up its security on other fronts. Sharif signed an economic pact with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last month, shortly after reaching a mutual-defense pact with the nation.

"Not only the Americans, but the world everywhere, they find in Pakistan right now a leadership that — despite all the challenges — is handling the affairs in a great manner," General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Pakistan's top military spokesman, said in an interview in Islamabad.

A challenge for Pakistan is whether it can trust Trump and balance relations with the US and China, Islamabad's top supplier of weapons, infrastructure and aid. Sharif met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing during a regional summit in September, while Foreign Minister Wang Yi also met with Munir a few months earlier.

"China has been a longstanding partner, so has the US," Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said in an interview in Islamabad. "They both know that we are well engaged on both ends."

Among the most touted sectors for investment have been Pakistan's resource wealth. Trump in July touted Pakistan's "massive" oil reserves, and a top US diplomat in Pakistan in August said US firms are showing interest in the sector, which has seen production fall for years.

A more promising sector is minerals. One prominent new US partner to date on this front is US Strategic Metals, a Missouri-based firm that in September signed a memorandum of understanding with an army-owned firm to develop Pakistan's rare earth resources.

The deal came together after an August meeting with Munir with other business executives in Florida, according to the company's commercial director, Mike Hollomon. Munir urged him to visit Pakistan "as fast as you can," he said.

Weeks later, Hollomon and other executives were in Islamabad meeting with Pakistani port operators. In October, the company began taking deliveries of small quantities of minerals for quality checks. The longer-term plan is to build rare-earths refining capacity in Pakistan, Hollomon said.

"We'd like this to become a political win for America," he said.

Source: Bloomberg Europe