Benign disengagement best for Pakistan

President Donald Trump's foreign policy actions and pronouncements have created geopolitical upheaval at an already unsettled time in the world.

- MALEEHA LODHI

It has sent countries scrambling to find ways to navigate the new global terrain and figure out how to engage with Washington under Trump's mercurial management.

He has upended US foreign policy on several fronts including the Middle East and Ukraine, jettisoned Western allies, all but abandoned the transatlantic alliance, and delivered more blows to multilateralism. His imposition of tariffs on friends and competitors alike has raised the spectre of a global trade war.

Trump's 'America First' unilateralist approach is further fragmenting the global order and ushering in a disruptive and volatile phase in international affairs.

This is the context in which Islamabad is weighing where it will figure with Trump's America. Both the government and opposition have been trying, so far unsuccessfully, to elicit the new administration's attention.

In fact, relations between the US and Pakistan have been at an inflection point since the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. For over two decades, the war in Afghanistan provided the principal basis for engagement between the US and Pakistan even as it became a source of mutual mistrust and disenchantment.

After that ended, Pakistan's diminished geopolitical importance for Washington drove relations to a low point. On the other hand, Pakistan's long-standing strategic ties with China continued to intensify.

Increasingly, America was seen as a self-absorbed and inconsistent partner as well as a reluctant regional player. China was perceived as having the will, money and growing global clout needed for a more constructive and enduring relationship that met both Pakistan's defence and economic interests.