HOW will the election of Donald Trump affect US-Pakistan relations? Let’s first clear up a myth. It is not true that Pakistan had good relations with the US when Trump was president. He wanted to get out of Afghanistan for which he sought former prime minister Imran Khan’s help in talking to the Taliban. Khan was rewarded with a visit to Washington and exceptional public praise from Trump. But once the deal with the Taliban was done, Trump turned his back on Pakistan, leaving no imprint on the relationship.

Trump notices only issues of high public interest, which have political traction. The present state of US-Pakistan relations is not one of them, neither are its domestic dynamics. Trump will most likely continue with the Joe Biden policy of low-intensity engagement with Islamabad, marked neither by significant aid levels nor by sanctions, the two extremes between which the relationship oscillated for much of its history.

There was a search under Biden for a new balance in relations that best responds to the completely changed regional and geopolitical landscape, and the shifting US foreign policy that faces challenges at home and overseas. Rising powers abroad are curtailing America’s global primacy by staking a role in reformatting........

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