Pakistan: Trump's New Friend in South Asia

US rediscovers friendship amid Nobel nomination

By: Salman Rafi Sheikh

Dinner companions Trump and Pakistan army chief Asim Munir

In a move that raised more than a few eyebrows in diplomatic circles, Pakistan in June nominated Donald Trump for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Far from symbolic flattery, the gesture marked a dramatic turn in US-Pakistan relations – an attempt to capitalize on the renewed warmth between Islamabad and Washington following years of mutual suspicion.

The Trump administration recently reciprocated by designating the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which Pakistan claims is backed by India, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). This is a major contrast to when Trump first took office in 2016 and unambiguously condemned Pakistan for playing a “double game” in Afghanistan. By 2018, he had already cut hundreds of millions in coalition support funds. Relations plunged further after the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, with Pakistan sidelined in Washington’s strategic calculus for South Asia.

Yet Trump’s return to power has seen a swift recalibration. What many analysts predicted would be another freeze has instead turned into an unexpected thaw, allowing both states to find common grounds beyond cooperation in terrorism.

The romance didn’t start in a vacuum, however. To be sure, Pakistan made the first move, which the Trump administration was quick to acknowledge and read it as an indication of a “different” Pakistan. In his State of the Union address delivered in March, Trump praised Pakistan for helping the US arrest Mohammad Sharifullah, the Islamic State–Khorasan (ISIS‑K) operative believed to be the mastermind behind the deadly August 2021 Abbey Gate suicide bombing at Kabul airport, which killed 13 US service members and numerous Afghan civilians.

This was a “gift” that Islamabad presented to Trump to get into his good books. The message was received with a lot of enthusiasm as Trump described the arrest as a “momentous step toward justice” and thanked Pakistan “for helping arrest this monster.”

Building on this enthusiasm, a US delegation led by Eric Meyer, the senior official overseeing the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs at the State Department, visited Pakistan in April to strengthen cooperation in rare earth minerals sector. The visit made sense as Pakistan prepared to open its deposits for foreign direct investment.

China already has some presence but seeing the second Trump administration a lot more willing than the first Trump administration to engage with Pakistan, Islamabad pitched cooperation with the US in this sector as the new core area of mutual interest.

Meyer’s visit came after the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio already had a telephone conversation with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and “raised prospects for engagement on critical minerals and expressed interest in expanding commercial opportunities for the US.”

The mutual interest, however, also has a global context that serves US interests. In the wake of the ongoing US-China “trade war” and Beijing’s domination of the global supply of rare earth minerals and its ability to chock supplies to the US and the West, Washington is looking to deepen its own access to these materials to compete with China.

Pakistan, on the other hand, is looking to capitalize on the US-China competition to deepen its ties with the US and play on both sides. Pakistan’s Army Chief, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, who has been to the US twice in the past two months and had a private dinner with Trump himself in the White House, said in a recent interview that the US is very serious in terms of deepening its investments in Pakistan’s mineral sector.

For Pakistan, tying the US with its mineral deposits would also give it advantage over its archrival India, which has fallen out of favor with Trump over its Russian oil purchases. If Islamabad has positive relations with the US, it can use them to manage Indian maneuvers, especially New Delhi’s claims about Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism in Kashmir. Pakistan’s success in getting the BLA designated as an terrorist organization is a step in that direction.

Washington, on the other hand, currently doesn’t have any problems with Pakistan’s strategy and goals. In fact, with the Trump administration currently in the middle of a “trade war” with India and punishing New Delhi for purchasing Russian oil and profiting from it by reselling it worldwide, it sees in an Islamabad an opportunity to further punish India. But it is not about trade only.

For Trump personally, New Delhi’s refusal to acknowledge US role in brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May is not only a major contrast to Pakistan’s nomination of Trump for the Nobel prize but also major evidence of India’s refusal to facilitate Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) agenda by not doing a trade deal favorable to the US interests, a deal that would see India lifting trade barriers for US exports to India. Pakistan, on the other hand, was quick to sign a deal with the US while offering Trump access to its so-called “massive oil reserves” for development.

Perhaps the most important element of Pakistan’s engagement is how Islamabad is offering opportunities for the Trump family to establish business ties, especially in the cryptocurrency sector. In April 2025, World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture in which the Trump family holds a majority (60 percent) stake, signed a Letter of Intent with the Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC) to collaborate on blockchain innovation, stablecoins, and decentralized finance (DeFi) across Pakistan.

The WLF team, including Zachary Witkoff (son of Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff), met with top Pakistani officials such as the Prime Minister, Army Chief, and finance and IT ministers to discuss the future of cooperation. This deal, when made, would not be any different from the deals that the Trump family recently signed with Gulf states during Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.

While it is too early to suggest that this venture will help modernize Pakistan’s overall economic outlook, what is surely happening is that it is keeping Trump very pleased and engaged with Pakistan.

Is this sustainable? Surely, US-Pakistan ties, for the first time perhaps in decades, are not explicitly tied to geopolitics and war on terror only. Prospects of economic cooperation in the field of critical minerals and their importance in global geoeconomics, Pakistan sees itself playing a long game where it can balance both China and the USA. Washington’s unstable ties with India are coming in handy, allowing Pakistan to walk the balancing act without resistance from New Delhi.

However, given the Trump-centric nature of America’s unstable ties with India and improved ties with Pakistan, questions about the long-term sustainability of Pak-US ties remain. Will the next president still find Pakistan as useful as the Trump administration currently does? A lot depends on the actual depth of access Pakistan will be able to achieve in Washington going forward. The gateway to that depth is actual American economic footprint in Pakistan’s mineral sector.

The size and the future of this footprint is contingent upon Pakistan’s ability to ensure a secure environment, for most of these reserves are in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, two provinces most affected by separatist and Islamist militancy. The FTO designation for the Baloch separatists is part of Pakistan’s attempts to manage the overall environment.

Dr. Salman Rafi Sheikh is a longtime commentator on diplomatic affairs for Asia Sentinel. He is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).