Pakistan America Relationship : What is Trump's policy on Pakistan?

By: Josue Diaz , Ph.D Public Policy, New York University (2018) To the best of my knowledge, Trump does not have an establishe...

By:

Josue Diaz, Ph.D Public Policy, New York University (2018)

To the best of my knowledge, Trump does not have an established policy on Pakistan.. yet. There was barely any mention of the country during election campaigning, and even after the Presidential inauguration, there has hardly been a  mention, with two notable exceptions - the first being an allegedly exuberant phone conversation between Trump and Sharif, where the latter’s efforts were profusely praised, and in a somewhat inappropriate breach of protocol, the script of the said conversation was published in press. The second one was a statement by the White House Press Secretary that Pakistan may be included in the 7-country travel ban for a 90-day period. Obviously, both statements/developments contradict each other, and without taking a potshot at the Trump administration, it will suffice to say that the administration has really not focused on a Pakistan policy. In my humble opinion, it is a mistake and should be made one of the priorities, even in the context of and especially in the context of “America First”.

To provide some context - Pakistan has been set up ever since the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and its decision to support the US and the Taliban to engage in guerilla warfare to defeat the Russian army. And indeed, the Russians left after reaching a certain point of exhaustion, if not defeat. Once the war was over, Pakistan had on its hands a large amount of Taliban Jihadis, and the powers that be decided that these could be assets that could be used in Kashmir. In that one momentous decision, Pakistan unraveled its immense potential to be a true global player. The rest is history.

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