A new picture of Donald Trump's meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Asim Munir at the White House has surfaced, showing them presenting rare earth minerals to the US President.
The picture showed Munir pointing at an open wooden box that contained the rare earth minerals as Trump looked on during the meeting in the Oval Office. Sharif was also seen standing with a slight smile.
Trump met Sharif, the first Pakistani prime minister to visit the White House in six years, and Munir, who held a rare one-on-one meeting with the US President at the Oval Office in June, on Thursday.
The meeting, which also saw the participation of Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reportedly continued for about an hour and a half.
Shehbaz described Trump as a "man of peace" for his "sincere efforts" to end conflicts around the globe, according to a statement from his office.
He also thanked Trump for the tariff deal signed between Pakistan and the US in July. The two countries reached a trade agreement that entails a 19 per cent tariff on Pakistani imports and will allow Washington to help develop Pakistan's oil reserves.
Sharif expressed confidence that under Trump's leadership, the Pakistan-US partnership would be "further strengthened to the mutual benefit of both countries", the statement said.
He also invited American companies to invest in Pakistan's agriculture, IT, mines and minerals and energy sectors, the statement added.
The meeting came as the bilateral ties showed a marked improvement after several years of a tenuous relationship.
US Eyeing Pakistan's Rare Earths
Pakistan's Frontier Works Organisation - which is the country's largest miner of critical minerals - this month signed a memorandum of understanding with Missouri-based US Strategic Metals for collaboration plans that include setting up a poly-metallic refinery in Pakistan.
US Strategic Metals is focused on producing and recycling critical minerals, which the US Department of Energy has defined as essential in a variety of technologies related to advanced manufacturing and energy production.
A second agreement was signed between the National Logistics Corp of Pakistan and Mota-Engil Group, a Portuguese engineering and construction company.
A statement from Sharif's office said he held talks with the delegation from US Strategic Metals and Mota-Engil over Pakistan's copper, gold, rare earths and other mineral resources.
The sides expressed readiness to develop value-added facilities, enhance mineral processing capacity, and undertake large-scale projects tied to mining, the statement said.
"The partnership will begin immediately with the export of readily available minerals from Pakistan, including antimony, copper, gold, tungsten, and rare earth elements," it said.
Sharif this year claimed that Pakistan possesses mineral reserves worth trillions of dollars, and foreign investment in the mineral sector could help the country overcome its prolonged financial crisis and free itself from the burden of massive foreign loans.
Most of Pakistan's mineral wealth, however, is in the insurgency-hit southwestern Balochistan province, where separatists have opposed the extraction of resources by Pakistani and foreign firms.
(With agency inputs)
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