Opinion | Message To India, Or Something Else? Why Trump Is Really Coddling Pakistan

Even as US President Donald Trump is delivering blows to ties with India, he is stepping up ties with Pakistan. There is clearly some re-balancing of US ties in the subcontinent. How much this new approach of creating misunderstandings with India and improving understandings with Pakistan is sufficiently thought through in a longer term perspective is unclear.

Trump has targeted India on many fronts. On the trade front, he is not seeking a balanced trade deal. He wants to breach India's redlines in the agricultural and dairy sectors under pressure from US lobbies. No principle is involved, only an assertion of US power. He has extracted one-sided, even humiliating, concessions from the EU, Japan and South Korea. He wants to be able to claim a similar public victory in India's case, but India is resisting.

What Trump Doesn't Understand

Trump and his henchmen who are pressuring India, to the point of even insulting it, do not realise that as a democratic country, the Indian government is answerable to public opinion at home and cannot concede on issues that affect the welfare of large parts of its population.

In India's case, Trump, by imposing 25% penalty tariffs to force India to stop buying large quantities of discounted Russian oil ostensibly on the ground that India is financing Russia's war in Ukraine, has weaponised tariffs not only for trade reasons but also for political reasons.

The Irony With Chabahar

He has added to pressures on India by imposing sanctions on the Chabahar port in Iran, in which India has invested as a strategic gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia that bypasses Pakistan. With the deterioration of ties between Pakistan and the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the US may also have wanted to send a message to Kabul. This connectivity project dilutes Pakistan's stranglehold on landlocked Afghanistan. It also competes with the Gwadar port. This may be one of the reasons why the US has taken this step as part of its new political bonhomie with Pakistan.

Gwadar is a Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project that gives China access to the Arabian Sea and the Gulf region, where it is now competing with US and European influence. With a base on the Makran coast, the expanding Chinese navy adds to the maritime security threats in the Indian Ocean that both India and the US face. By sanctioning Chabahar, the US is undermining India's strategic interests and, ironically, aiding those of China.

A Miffed Trump

Trump's political tilt in favour of Pakistan seems to have political, economic and security dimensions.

On the political side, Trump seems to have been deeply piqued by India's refusal to give him credit for arranging a ceasefire between India and Pakistan following India's Operation Sindoor. One assumed that Trump's desire to receive the Nobel Peace prize was a political ambition many leaders have had and was not a pathology of sorts, as it now appears to be.

Trump seems to have taken very ill India's refusal to acknowledge his claimed role in brokering a ceasefire through trade threats to both sides. He has obviously felt that this achievement qualified him to receive the Nobel Peace prize. This explains why he has also been dramatising that he prevented a potential India-Pakistan nuclear showdown.

Pakistan, on the other hand, decided to pander to Trump's ego by not only giving him full credit for arranging the ceasefire but also, quite cynically, officially nominating him for the Nobel Peace award. Despite India's denial of any US role in a statement in the Indian parliament, Trump has taken credit for the ceasefire almost 40 times now. To this he has added a list of six other conflicts he has ended, some of which are imaginary.

The Kashmir 'Pitch'

Trump has also been provoking India by wanting to mediate between India and Pakistan on Kashmir. This goes back to his first term. He has restated his desire to do so in his second term following Operation Sindoor. India has, naturally, rejected any third party role in resolving bilateral issues with Pakistan. By raising this issue with a view to stabilise India-Pakistan ties, Trump was preparing the ground for his subsequent political moves towards Pakistan, which India did not anticipate.

That Saudi Pact

On the security side, Operation Sindoor occurred when Trump was in Saudi Arabia, which, with hindsight, might explain his evolving pro-Pakistan position. He was, it would appear, planning a more active role for Pakistan in providing security to Saudi Arabia through a Saudi-Pakistan defence pact, which has now been announced. It is most unlikely that with the huge US bases in Bahrain, next to Saudi Arabia, and in Qatar, and the underwriting of Saudi security over the years with arms supplies, etc., this defence pact would have been negotiated without US countenancing it. Its complex connotations need further analysis, no doubt.

The US could well have in mind the strengthening of Pakistan's military machine with Saudi funds after the battering it received during Operation Sindoor. This is because direct US military aid to Pakistan would cause serious long term strains in India-US ties. The US has already turned a blind eye to Chinese arms supplies to Pakistan, with more in the offing, despite Pakistan continuing to be a major non-NATO Ally of the US. If Pakistan bought more Chinese arms with Saudi money, the US could overlook it.

Lunch Visits, Military Honours

Trump is fully aware of Pakistan's record of double-dealing and deceit in its relations with the US, and has said so openly in the past. The US is cognisant of Pakistan's long truck with terror. He is surely briefed on the deep Islamist leanings of the Pakistani Army Chief, Asim Munir. He would know that India would also be following closely the signals coming from the US on the heels of Operation Sindoor.

Trump chose nonetheless to take the unprecedented step of inviting Asim Munir to a private lunch at the White House. The US CENTCOM chief, General Kurilla, in turn, lauded Pakistan in hearings in the Congress for its phenomenal counter-terrorism cooperation with the US. He was invited to Pakistan to receive the country's highest military honour. Asim Munir went to Florida for the farewell ceremony on General Kurilla's retirement. During his visit, Munir in an address to the Pakistani diaspora threatened to use nuclear weapons to destroy half the world, without any reaction from the US. Pakistan has now offered nuclear protection to Saudi Arabia. It raises very serious nuclear proliferation issues, but there is no murmur from the US.

Pressuring India

It may not be wrong to infer from all this that the US under Trump wants to strengthen Pakistan as a pressure point on India after its weaknesses have been exposed during Operation Sindoor.

The economic dimension pertains to Pakistan offering rights to the US to mine for rare earths and other metals in Balochistan. As a continuation of the special attention being paid to Pakistan, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Trump in New York as part of the select group of Arab and Islamic countries. Sharif, along with Munir, then met Trump at the White House, where the Pakistan Army Chief, acting like a salesperson, showed to him a sample of rare earths from Pakistan. A US company seems to have already signed an MoU to invest in a mining operation in Balochistan. Knowledgeable persons are of the view that all this is a show since mining rare earths and processing them is a very arduous capital intensive operation that can take a decade to realise.

On top of this, Balochistan is a highly troubled area with insurgents active on the ground. The Chinese are facing security threats. Does the US want to eventually get pushed to involve itself in security operations in the area?

The business interests of those close to the White House are reportedly also involved in a crypto/stable coin deal with the Pakistan Crypto Council. This, too, is supposed to explain why Pakistan is receiving so much attention from Trump. In short, Trump has reshuffled the political, security and economic cards in the subcontinent as a challenge to India's interests.

(Kanwal Sibal was Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia, and Deputy Chief Of Mission in Washington.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author