- US President Donald Trump met Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the Oval Office on Thursday
- Pakistan's Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir accompanied Sharif for the White House meeting
- The meeting followed a new trade deal and a brief encounter at the UN General Assembly
US President Donald Trump met Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the Oval Office on Thursday. Pakistan's Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, who was hosted by Trump for lunch at the White House early this summer, accompanied Sharif for the meeting, which was also attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Before the meeting, the US leader called the visitors "great leaders", a sign of thaw in US-Pakistan ties.
"We have a great leader coming, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and the Field Marshal. Field Marshal is a very great guy, and so is the Prime Minister, both, and they're coming, and they may be in this room right now," Trump said, speaking to reporters.
The meeting followed a trade deal between the US and Pakistan and came shortly after Trump and Sharif very briefly met at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, when the US president held a multilateral meeting with leaders from Arab nations and others, including Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye.
Sharif arrived at the White House around 4.52 pm and was greeted by senior administration officials. Trump signed several executive orders and was speaking to reporters when Sharif and Munir arrived at the White House.
The Pakistani PM's motorcade was seen leaving the White House around 6.18 pm, according to the White House pool.
News agency ANI reported the two Pakistani leaders had to wait for nearly half an hour to meet Trump, a claim NDTV could not independently verify. The White House press pool pictures also showed Munir and Sharif waiting at the White House as the US President completed his engagements.
Thaw In US-Pak Ties
The US, traditionally, viewed Pakistan primarily as a strategic security partner in South Asia, first during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and then again during the so-called "war on terror". That relationship collapsed over time, with growing evidence of Pakistan supporting terrorism, especially after American forces found Osama bin Laden living in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Trump has himself in 2018, claimed that Islamabad had given Washington "nothing but lies and deceit"
"We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting...It is time for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to civilisation, order, and to peace", he had said.
But now Pakistan has something new to offer the US, and a glimpse of it was seen in a high-profile signing ceremony at Sharif's residence earlier this month. On September 8, senior officials from Islamabad and Pakistan signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) in the presence of Sharif and Munir.
One of the agreements was on Pakistan supplying critical minerals and rare earth elements to the US. A US firm is investing $500m in Pakistani minerals. This followed Trump's July pledge to work with Pakistan to develop its "massive oil reserves".
The two countries have 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. US goods and services trade with Pakistan totalled an estimated USD 10.1 billion in 2024, up 6.3 per cent (USD 523.0 million) from 2023.
The US's total goods trade (exports plus imports) with Pakistan was an estimated USD 7.2 billion in 2024. US goods exports to Pakistan in 2024 were USD 2.1 billion, up 3.3 per cent (USD 67.2 million) from 2023. US goods imports from Pakistan in 2024 totalled USD 5.1 billion, up 4.8 per cent (USD 233.9 million) from 2023. The US goods trade deficit with Pakistan was USD 3 billion in 2024, a 5.9 per cent increase (USD 166.7 million) from 2023.
So far, Pakistan's approach appears to be working, with Washington hosting Munir thrice in the last few months, especially since India and Pakistan engaged in military confrontation in May.
The last Pakistani prime minister to visit the White House was Imran Khan, who met Trump in July 2019 on an "official working visit". Before him, Sharif's brother and then Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif visited the White House in 2015.
Another reason for the sudden warmth in ties is often attributed to Islamabad giving credit for the ceasefire with India to Trump's intervention. Trump has said on multiple occasions that he ended the recent conflict between India and Pakistan, a claim repeatedly denied by India.
Pakistan, which initially denied the claim, later accepted it and went ahead and nominated Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, in "recognition of his decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership during the recent India-Pakistan crisis".
