Minerals diplomacy opens doors, but questions linger over Pakistan’s capacity to benefit from the $500m deal.
By Abid Hussain
Islamabad, Pakistan – When Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meets US President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, he will be carrying with him a promise unlike any that his predecessors have taken to such meetings.
For several years, Pakistan’s primary strategic value to the United States was its role as a security partner, first during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and then during the so-called “war on terror”.
That relationship slowly collapsed amid accusations from growing sections of the US strategic community – and Trump himself – that Islamabad was duplicitous and couldn’t be trusted, especially after American forces found Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
But a high-profile signing ceremony at the Pakistan PM’s residence earlier this month provided a glimpse of the country’s new offer to the US. On September 8, two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) were signed in a ceremony attended by Sharif and Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, alongside senior officials from both Islamabad and Washington.
The headline agreement – on Pakistan supplying critical minerals and rare earth elements to the US – followed Trump’s July pledge to work with Pakistan to develop its “massive oil reserves”. A US firm is investing $500m in Pakistani minerals.
