The Pak-US relations are in a new comfort zone as enough confidence building has come into play. The debut meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Donald Trump in White House has set the momentum for renewed cooperation between the two countries. The good point is that Islamabad is now being viewed once again as a strategic ally by Washington, and not through the prism of India and China.
The spade work done before the summit meeting is a testimony of the fact that a broad-based consensus is in the making, and the ill-will of yesteryears has been addressed to a great extent. The trade deal is a case in point wherein Islamabad was smart enough to seek reciprocal tariff concessions from 29 to 19%, at a time when the US authorities were in a row with many of their allies, and likewise it entered into a landmark agreement on exploration and export of rare earth minerals.
The presence of Army Chief Gen Asim Munir in the meeting reportedly led to a thorough discussion on counterterrorism in the region. With President Trump having taken the lead in brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in their four-day conflict in May and subsequently expressing his desire to bring the two arch-rivals across the table, the triangular moot took a leap forward in expressing Islamabad’s desire for peace and tranquility in the region and beyond. Pakistan also looks up to a land for peace-based two-state solution in the Middle East, and banks on Trump to make it happen.
The bilateral ties under the Trump administration have become multi-dimensional; and the interest expressed in crypto-currency, minerals, oil and gas, as well as agriculture and IT by the US makes it people-centric and socio-economic in essence. This reset is in need of an institutional approach, and should be cemented with a sustained composite dialogue. Pakistan is, likewise, eager in terms of broadening people-to-people contacts, especially in the realms of democracy and laissez faire economy.
