The Trump regime’s reported invitation to Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir to attend the 250th US Army Day celebrations in Washington tomorrow has stirred various vectors of speculation. Chief among them: potential reset in US-Pakistan relations; Pakistan’s prospective utility within an emergent Trump doctrine that views bilateral ties primarily through an economic lens; revival of a counterterrorism partnership between Islamabad/Rawalpindi and Washington; iImplications of such a warming of US-Pakistan ties on US-India relations.
In New Delhi, this apparent shift in Washington’s posture has come as a surprise. What is even more startling is the timing – coming on the heels of India’s retaliation against Pakistan for its involvement in the Pahalgam terrorist attacks on civilians.
A significant part of Trump’s appeal among Indians, both in India and the diaspora, stemmed from his tough stance on terrorism. During Trump 1.0, he publicly called out Pakistan’s duplicity in his very first tweet of 2018, accusing it of ‘lies and deceit’ while receiving billions in US aid. He subsequently cut $300 mn in aid to Pakistan, a move that built on the Obama administration’s earlier decision to withhold one-third of all military assistance to the country.
Hyphenating US-Pak: Doing business with gunmen (Harsh V. Pant, Vivek Mishra – Observer Research Foundation)
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