Can Pakistan parlay its temporary diplomatic success with Trump into a fundamental reset with Washington?
For years, including during Donald Trump’s first term, India sat comfortably in Washington’s good graces. Boasting the world’s largest population as well as a growing middle class, India had endeared itself to the world’s developed economies. Military strategists promoted India’s role as a “net security provider” in the Indo-Pacific region, highlighting its importance as a nuclear-armed bulwark against China.
Pakistan, on the other hand, was not so lucky. As the world’s only Islamic nation to possess nuclear weapons, its image suffered following September 11, 2001. Its support for the Taliban resurgence next door in Afghanistan didn’t help. “Being a friend to Pakistan is a lonely job in this town,” would quip the rare DC foreign policy hand sympathetic to a more balanced South Asia policy.
These attitudes easily carried into the second Trump administration. However, when the President unexpectedly praised Pakistan for counter-terrorism cooperation during his first joint address to Congress, the script began to flip. Pakistan suddenly gained new advocates in Washington.
That alone didn’t shift the balance but did set the stage for Trump’s penchant for personality politics to play an outsize role. When Indian prime minister Narendra Modi launched an attack on Pakistan in May in response to a terrorist attack in Kashmir, which the Indian government alleged was backed by Pakistan, he intended to demonstrate Indian military superiority. However, the gamble partially backfired when Pakistan downed an unclear number of Indian fighter jets in the ensuing dogfights before agreeing to a ceasefire.
However, Modi’s reaction to the end of hostilities seemed to anger Trump: the war had lasted only four days, at least in part, because Trump intervened and urged the parties to de-escalate. Despite its newfound bravado, Pakistan had no interest in entering into a protracted conflict, so it happily took the exit ramp and heaped praise on Trump, adding a Nobel Peace Prize nomination to boot. Trump basked in the glory, while India denied that he had even played a role in peacemaking.
A post-conflict Modi visit to Washington at the president’s invitation did not materialize, so Trump instead hosted the most powerful man in Pakistan’s military, Field Marshal Asim Munir, for a White House lunch in late June. Widely regarded as a steady hand in an often turbulent region, Munir’s consistency in both strategic outlook and messaging appealed to Trump’s craving for predictability beneath the theatrics.
The relationship flowered, and a month later, Trump doubled down on his new “bromance” with General Munir, while touting great economic deals with Pakistan. Simultaneously, Trump hit India with higher tariffs as retaliation for its Russian oil purchases. This punitive move drove New Delhi toward Beijing and Moscow, prompting Modi to schedule his first visit to China in seven years.
Still, questions remain about the durability of this apparent pivot toward Pakistan. While Trump’s inner circle may now view Islamabad more favorably, it’s unclear whether this shift has translated into a broader institutional consensus across Washington. After years of strategic courtship with New Delhi, rooted in bipartisan support and Pentagon-backed Indo-Pacific frameworks, a few high-level gestures might not signal a fundamental reorientation.
Yet, the story does not end here and could soon veer into more dangerous territory for three key reasons. First, Modi is smarting from the loss of face and faces continuous domestic pressure to exact revenge on Pakistan, which he can do by choking off the Indus River and its tributaries, which flow from Northern India into Pakistan. While India doesn’t have the capacity to dam up all the rivers year-round, the flow slows enough during the coming September harvest to make Pakistan feel the pain. The resulting food insecurity faced by millions will be viewed by Pakistan as an existential threat, potentially leading tensions to pick up where they left off in May.
Why would Modi want to weaponize water and risk an all-out war? His party faces a tough bellwether state legislative election in Bihar, and rallying people behind the flag is a tried-and-true electoral tactic. That’s the second trigger: heavily-populated Bihar is a poor region that Modi needs to placate, and caving to Trump on trade deals that risk decimating India’s dairy and agricultural sectors won’t fly.
Finally, there’s the issue of Balochistan, Pakistan’s westernmost region on the Iranian border. The United States, aware that China has invested heavily in the region through its Belt and Road Initiative, seeks its share of the pie, particularly in Balochistan’s mineral wealth. So it’s no accident that this week the State Department branded the Balochistan Liberation Army as terrorists. Islamabad has long accused this separatist thorn in its side of being an Indian proxy dedicated to regional destabilization. If true, the terror designation is Washington signaling “hands off” to Modi.
What remains to be seen is Modi’s appetite for conflict with the world’s most powerful man. The self-styled “negotiator-in-chief” wants bragging rights for bending India to his will on trade, and getting cozy with arch-rival Pakistan partly serves that goal.
But Pakistan’s recast role goes beyond Trump’s fickle “bromantic” tastes. Trump is a dealmaker, and while the value of India’s 2024 exports to the United States was nearly 17 times that of Pakistan’s, that balance could alter significantly if critical mineral or even oil and gas sectors expand. Munir has the White House’s attention, and he needs to ensure that his country plays its economic cards as well as military ones to keep Trump happy.
About the Author: Eldar Mamedov
Eldar Mamedov is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and a member of the Pugwash Council on Science & World Affairs, a Nobel Peace Prize–winning Track II diplomacy organization committed to pursuing a world free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Eldar has more than 30 years of professional foreign policy experience as a Latvian diplomat and senior foreign policy adviser in the European Parliament.
Image: The White House / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.
