US President Donald Trump’s sudden fondness for Pakistan continues to baffle analysts and geopolitical experts, who believe Islamabad could score because it managed to navigate the Trump world at a time of global uncertanities. Besides securing one of the lowest US tariffs among Asian economies at 19 percent, Islamabad has also managed to get the US to come up with a joint plan to explore “its massive oil reserves”.
Ayaz Amir, a political commentator and former Pakistani officer, told The Washington Post that the US-Pakistan bonhomie has come as a surprise to “most people even in Pakistan” and perhaps to India as well. Another analyst, Michael Kugelman, thinks the thaw in the relations left “a lot of question marks”.
But, the Post report, quoting analysts, has shed light on how the Pakistan Army was behind the successful outreach programme, which eventually resulted in Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir getting an invite to Washington twice.
Just after Trump returned to the White House, there was anxiety in Islamabad that he might seek the release of imprisoned opposition leader and former prime minister Imran Khan, according to analysts and former officials. Their fears came true when a bipartisan bill was introduced in the US Congress in March seeking to impose sanctions on Pakistan's Army chief, General Asim Munir, for his alleged role in persecuting political opponents, including former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. The bill explicitly accused Munir of "knowingly engaging in the wrongful persecution and imprisonment of political opponents".
It was then that the Pakistani military decided to oversee the negotiations itself, the Washington Post quoted unnamed Pakistani officials.
Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi was the first to arrive in Washington, just after Trump’s inauguration, to meet the members of Congress. The Pakistani military also hired 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, the report added.
But the first move towards thaw in the relationship came in March after Pakistan aided in capturing a senior ISIS terrorist accused of the 2021 suicide bombing in Kabul that killed 13 American troops. Then came Operation Sindhoor, which saw Pakistan acknowledging and even lavishing praise on Trump for “brokering a ceasefire between the countries”. They also nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Within weeks, Trump invited Munir to have lunch with him at the White House, which served as a tacit acknowledgement of Munir’s growing political clout.
That said, many Pakistani analysts are warning that the relationship may crumble. “Flattery is not a strategy — it’s not long-term,” Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, told The Post.