US President Joe Biden is not cool enough, not young enough, not pro-Palestinian enough. Young Democrats are disappointed by his approach to Gaza, while older voters remain grumpy about inflation. Political forecasters are therefore predicting a win for Donald Trump in this year’s US election. So it’s time to ask, what would a Trump win mean for Pakistan?

Pakistanis may have a misplaced nostalgia for the Trump era, recalling the brom­a­nce with Imran Khan and the offer to mediate between Islamabad and Delhi over Kashmir. But that reset of ties in 2019 (only a year after Trump had accused Pak­istan of ‘lies and deceit’) was transactional, and rooted in the context of Pakistani support engaging with the Afghan Taliban to facilitate a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

US-Pakistan relations continue to be de­­fined by security considerations but times have changed and a second-term Trump administration (much like another Biden administration) is unlikely to prioritise ties. The US’s key interests have been that nuclear-armed Pakistan is not irreversibly destabilised, that India-Pakistan tensions do not devolve into conflict, and that the region does not become a hotbed of global militancy. Nominally, Washington would also like to prevent Pakistan from falling........

© Dawn