Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. president has evoked concern in Pakistan for several reasons. Analysts have pointed out that with China and the Indo-Pacific likely to be the focus of Trump’s foreign policy, the United States would prioritize ties with India as part of its efforts to contain China. Pakistani apprehensions that Trump 2.0 would tilt toward India intensified after the India-U.S. Joint Statement issued at the end of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Trump in February named Pakistan in relation to cross-border terrorist attacks in India. The U.S. also offered to sell India F-35 fighter aircraft.
With India being the focus of Trump’s attention, would Pakistan be sidelined?
Here to make sense of Trump’s Pakistan policy is Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. and currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy. In an interview with The Diplomat’s South Asia editor Sudha Ramachandran, Haqqani said that Pakistan could regain U.S. attention if al-Qaida and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) are seen to pose a “serious threat” to the U.S., and if the U.S. decides to initiate military operations targeting the Iranian regime.
Pakistan-U.S. relations over the past decade have been defined by declining U.S. interest in Pakistan. What underlies this trend? And what could change this?
Geopolitics was the reason why U.S.-Pakistan relations were strong during the Cold War and the war against terrorism. Changes in U.S. geopolitical priorities are the reason for declining American interest in Pakistan. The U.S. needed Pakistan for espionage operations targeting the Soviet Union and China in the 1950s and 1960s, and later as a base for Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has also ended the need for Pakistan in supplying American troops there.
Checking the economic and military rise of China as a peer competitor is now the central U.S. concern in its Indo-Pacific strategy. Successive U.S. presidents have also deepened a strategic partnership with India in the hope of building up India as a rival to China. Over the past two decades, India, not Pakistan, has become the preferred American partner in the region.
Still, Pakistan could regain U.S. attention due to its location at the confluence of South, Central, and West Asia. It could be a counterterrorism partner if the U.S. senses a serious threat from al-Qaida and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan, and could be important if the U.S. decides to initiate military operations targeting the Iranian regime. The Trump administration can also possibly view Pakistan as a source of critical minerals.
Although Pakistan is not seen as a priority for U.S. interests as it was earlier, that does not mean it is unimportant. The U.S. simply cannot ignore a nuclear-armed Muslim country with 240 million people.
The India-U.S. Joint Statement issued at the end of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Washington appears to have rattled Pakistan far more than have previous statements. Why? After all, the Modi-Trump Joint Statement of June 2023 also mentioned Pakistan by name and called on it to “ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks.”
Over the last three decades, every American president has championed a strong strategic partnership with India. Successive joint statements over the last decade, both at bilateral summits and at Quad meetings, have referred to “cross-border terrorism” as a joint American and Indian concern. So, the current statement naming Pakistan was not new. It just reiterated that the new American administration, right at the start, was continuing to tell Pakistan what previous ones had done.
Pakistan was rattled because the statement came so soon after the inauguration of the new president. But the Trump administration is unconventional, and joint statements mean less under this president, who will act in a transactional manner. That is why, soon after the statement that criticized Pakistan by name, President Trump thanked Pakistan by name in his State of the Union address to Congress.
Following Modi’s visit and the offer of F-35s to India, Trump approved a $397 million package for Pakistan’s F-16 fighter jet fleet. It appears that the U.S. is not favoring India over Pakistan but is back to its old game of arming both sides against each other. Your comments?
The $397 million package for Pakistan’s F-16 fleet was not unexpected and is the leftover from a $450 million package approved under the Biden administration. It does not reflect a resumption of military aid to Pakistan, as many in India believe, but rather a long-standing American commitment to ensure life-cycle maintenance of any American equipment that has been sold to a foreign country.
The current Indian leadership wants the rest of the world, including the U.S., to adopt its own attitude of totally shutting Pakistan out until India’s concerns about terrorism are addressed to India’s satisfaction. That is unlikely to happen. As for arming both sides, Trump is interested in improving the U.S. economy and that involves selling weapons to whoever wants to buy them.
Like India, Pakistan also has reservations about strict U.S. restrictions on use of its military equipment in conflict. But while India buys U.S. weapons under Foreign Military Sales, Pakistan is dependent on Foreign Military Funding or aid due to its economic situation. The Trump administration is unlikely to resume large-scale Foreign Military Funding.
The Pakistan Democracy Act is set to be introduced in the U.S. Congress. What is its likely impact on Pakistan’s politics and Pakistan-U.S. relations?
Whether the Pakistan Democracy Act is actually passed and, if passed, becomes more than a symbolic piece of legislation will depend upon whether the Trump administration is really concerned about democracy in other countries. So far, this administration does not seem as keen on democracy promotion abroad as the previous one. Even when the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution in support of democracy and human rights in Pakistan in June 2024, it had little impact on the Biden administration’s policy towards Pakistan.
In his State of the Union speech on March 4, President Trump thanked Pakistan for arresting the ISKP militant who was responsible for the Kabul airport bombing that killed American soldiers in 2021. This affirms my view that President Trump’s approach will be strictly transactional — “do something for us, and we might do something for you.”
To secure further cooperation in counterterrorism or in addressing other administration priorities, the Trump team will need better relations with the existing government and the military establishment of Pakistan. It would not be the first time that democracy and human rights take a back seat in U.S.-Pakistan relations. After all, international relations are less about ideology and more about interests.
Some analysts have said that Trump’s freezing of foreign aid could open up or expand space for China. Could this happen in Pakistan? Is China interested in funding USAID-like projects?
While China is unlikely to start giving aid in the form of grants like USAID, space has certainly been created for China. Options for all aid-dependent countries, not just Pakistan, are now limited. Instead of access to USAID-like projects, they may be forced to take high-interest loans under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The challenge will come in the areas of public health, education, and human development, for which China does not give loans or aid. If the U.S does not offer aid for human development, then countries like Japan, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE will probably have to step in. For many countries, India will be an option but that might not be the case for Pakistan.
China has historically provided little developmental aid to countries, preferring loans, and economic investment. Pakistan, like other developing countries, has received limited aid from China, normally after natural disasters. Additional Chinese investment is likely to come in the fields of energy and infrastructure.
Currently, around a quarter of Pakistan’s debt is owed to China and it is unlikely that Pakistan would seek to increase that proportion and risk becoming a Chinese dependency. We must not forget that Pakistan’s decision to seek Chinese assistance was primarily motivated by a desire to avoid total dependence on the U.S. A lot depends on Pakistan’s ability to manage its economy better, so that the perennial need for aid diminishes.
Could Pakistan emerge as an important partner of the U.S. as Trump’s targeting of Iran gathers momentum?
Pakistan could leverage its strategic location vis-à-vis Iran, especially if required to do so by its Gulf Arab partners. But any overt involvement against Iran will have an impact on Pakistan’s domestic politics and could instigate sectarian conflict. If Pakistan decides to partner with the U.S. and Arab countries in targeting Iran, it will have to calibrate its support to avoid domestic blowback. There could be intelligence cooperation and covert assistance while officially proclaiming neutrality in a conflict involving an immediate neighbor.