India's newly concluded trade agreement with the United States has triggered a sharp backlash within Pakistan, where critics say months of high-profile outreach to Washington yielded little to show for it. Despite Islamabad's overtures to US President Donald Trump, including nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize and backing his inclusion on the Board of Peace, Pakistan emerged with a higher tariff burden than India.
New Delhi is widely seen as having held its ground against pressure from Trump for months.
In a flurry of social media posts, Trump shared images of India Gate and an India Today magazine cover featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi alongside himself, before revealing that tariffs on Indian goods would be cut to 18 per cent, one percentage point lower than Pakistan's rate.
The optics have not gone unnoticed across the border. Many in Pakistan expressed disbelief that India managed to secure a better deal without what they describe as excessive deference to Trump.
One viral post captured the prevailing anger and sarcasm. Pakistan-based X user Umar Ali wrote,
"Donald Trump has treated Field Marshal like that mistress who makes her lover do all the illegal and dirty work, and when the time comes to give or take something, she says I am compelled to obey my family's decision, forget me. My body will remain my husband's, but my soul will always remain yours,"
alongside an AI-generated image depicting a distraught Field Marshal Asim Munir holding a box of rare minerals before the India Today cover featuring PM Modi and Trump.
Former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) minister Hammad Azhar framed the outcome as a failure of strategy rather than circumstance. "Foreign policy in the 21st century isn't about optics or personal relationships. It's about leveraging economic strength, tariffs, and market access. India's recent trade deals with the EU and the US prove the point. Sycophancy & photo ops are useless," he wrote on X.
The agreement, announced on February 2, sets US tariffs on Indian exports at 18 per cent. Pakistan, meanwhile, faces a 19 per cent rate despite what critics describe as sustained lobbying efforts in Washington by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief General Asim Munir.
The Pakistani opposition has seized on the contrast. PTI leaders argue that India negotiated from a position of "strategic autonomy", while Pakistan's leadership relied heavily on personal engagement, only to walk away with a less favourable outcome.
Journalist Asad Toor warned that the tariff decision compounds Pakistan's broader economic troubles. He pointed to falling exports, dwindling foreign investment, and what he described as a near-total erosion of the country's bargaining power.
Journalist Imran Riaz Khan also criticised the lobbying and said, "The 'Salesman-in-Chief' strategy has failed. You can give away Balochistan's minerals in wooden boxes, but you cannot buy respect."
Digital creator Wajahat Khan wrote, "Trump is a businessman. He saw a manager and a shopkeeper and gave them a shopkeeper's deal. India came as a partner and walked away with the 18 per cent prize. This is the cost of having a government without the backbone of a public mandate."
Back-to-back trade agreements with the European Union and the United States, one hailed as the "mother of all trade deals" and the other to slash tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent, are widely expected to boost the economy, adding a potential US$150 billion in exports over a decade.
