Even as the world struggles to come to terms with arguably, the greatest upset in US political history with Donald Trump’s election as president and what it portends, there is relative calm in Pakistan over the development – contrary to the general impression created in the neighbourhood about a betrayal of nerves over how a Trump Administration would tighten the screws around Islamabad.
There are a few compelling reasons for Pakistan not to lose sleep over what admittedly, is still a grey area.
To begin with, it stems from the fact that it is not only Pakistan which has not figured on the Trump foreign policy map yet, but save for a couple of superpowers (Russia and China), almost every other critical and non-critical area of Washington’s foreign policy under the real estate mogul is still unknown.
The calm was evident in the Pakistani financial market with KSE-100, a benchmark for market form, recovering all its losses during early morning trade and ending positive right after Trump’s election became evident even when elsewhere on the globe stocks were plunging.
Economists remain cautiously hopeful there will be no bolt from the blue.
Pakistan Business Council CEO Ehsan Malik says the country’s trade with US has weathered many changes in American governments and it is unlikely to be impacted immediately or significantly with Trump’s ascension to the White House.
“Any US administration would wish to position trade relations with Pakistan in a manner that reflects its role in this region and in the context of what others, including China aspire to achieve,” Malik told daily The Express Tribune last week.
While Islamabad prepares for prospective course resetting, the overriding expectation is that Trump will helm a largely domestic-driven agenda and his administration’s relationship with Pakistan will be more straight-forward, if assertive.
As would be expected, there’s a lot of interest in Pakistan surrounding which way the wind will blow this time with no dearth of even comical attempts to glean and decipher whatever little Trump has uttered about or in relation to Pakistan – most of it a few sporadic, but not very categorical tweets.
There’s even a small video clip doing the rounds in the social media where Trump can be heard saying “I love Pakistan” – without the context!
On a serious note, the hard fact is that US-Pakistan ties have long been transactional even if the Obama Administration – like the ones before it – pretended otherwise in the post-9/11 era where Washington desperately needed Islamabad’s help to front its self-styled war-on-terror.
Over the years the security-driven relationship has see-sawed in consonance with American needs.
Referring to Trump’s generally hawkish tone, a Foreign Office official in Islamabad suggested there was daylight between campaign rhetoric and the compulsions and dynamics of power.
He reminded that the US was not a country where one individual could run a solo flight and it was unlikely if there would be any fundamental change in American policy regards Pakistan.
As if evidence was needed, just days into his election, a chastened Trump is already shifting uncomfortably on his campaign-avowed policy upends (skim http://ind.pn/2fGwjl3 for a glimpse!)
Indeed, last week Grace Shelton, US Consul General in Karachi, drove this home in remarks to a Pakistani TV channel, saying: “Our foreign policy is based on national interest and they don’t change when the government changes”.
Despite waning interest, Washington cannot cut loose given its strategic objectives in the region, particularly in next-door Afghanistan, which ensures that Islamabad will retain its importance even under the Trump Administration.
Despite a generally brimstone proclivity towards states like China during his campaign, Trump will likely be drawn into the gravity of international geopolitics sooner than later.
The US no longer enjoys the kind of leverage over Pakistan that it once did when it was liberally offering assistance and arms.
With Islamabad recently concluding its final programme with the International Monetary Fund, even the indirect leverage is gone.
If at all, it is Islamabad which has a more resonant grouse with Washington for blocking coalition funds earlier this year that were due for its services in the anti-terror fight and reneging from a deal to deliver F-16 fighter jets.
Washington, of course continues to complain that Islamabad needs to do more in the terror war with demands that it take action the Haqqani group, but depending on the ground situation at a particular time, this turns into acrimony sometimes, and just collateral for its own failures in Afghanistan on other occasions.
The bigger reality that a Trump Administration would have to deal with in its relations with Islamabad is Pakistan’s burgeoning ties with China and, even Russia — countries that will have a pivotal place in his foreign policy. The groundbreaking $46bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and an unprecedented defence-related upswing in ties with Russia will embolden Islamabad’s hands.
For geographic considerations alone, Washington’s road to Kabul still has to pretty much wind down from Islamabad.
That having said, the Foreign Office in Islamabad will be keenly watching how, if, far does the Trump Administration go in its ties with India.
It was quick to welcome the American president-elect’s campaign time offer to mediate on Kashmir if both India and Pakistan were amenable to the idea.
But that of course has remained the standard US position for a long time now with India vehemently opposed to any third party mediation. But how it transpired was revealing.
In what seemed like a rare moment of caution coming from the outspoken Republican candidate, he was asked by an Indian journalist whether he would support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government’s action against Islamabad to stop alleged “cross-border terrorism”. Shrewdly refusing to take the report’s bait, this is what Trump proffered instead: “Well, I would love to see Pakistan and India get along, because that’s a very, very hot tinderbox….That would be a very great thing. I hope they can do it.”
He later told the Hindustan Times in response to a query about a possible role: “If we could get India and Pakistan getting along, I would be honoured to do that.” Trump felt it would “be a tremendous achievement” and “if they wanted me to, I would love to be the mediator or arbitrator”.
*The writer is Community Editor.
UNDECIDED: It is still unclear what direction the White House under Donald Trump will take with regard to Pakistan and the region.
