Even in an administration that has been full of surprises, Donald Trump’s pivot to Pakistan has stood out.

The U.S. president has developed a close relationship with senior Pakistani leadership, including the country’s powerful military chief, Asim Munir—whom he hosted at the White House in June and again in September—and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whom he has met three times this year.

Even in an administration that has been full of surprises, Donald Trump’s pivot to Pakistan has stood out.

The U.S. president has developed a close relationship with senior Pakistani leadership, including the country’s powerful military chief, Asim Munir—whom he hosted at the White House in June and again in September—and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whom he has met three times this year.

Trump has praised both men, describing them as “great people” in a speech at a summit in Southeast Asia in October. “I love Pakistan,” Trump said before hosting Munir in June.

Sharif and Munir have also showered Trump with praise, endorsing his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize both formally and informally at least half a dozen times. “You’re the man this world needed most at this point in time,” Sharif told Trump in October in Egypt, where the two men had gathered with several other leaders to formalize the Gaza cease-fire agreement.

Countries around the world have adopted a variety of strategies to navigate Trump’s second term—a spectrum ranging from flattery to uneasy coexistence to outright defiance—with varying degrees of success. There is a widespread recognition that Pakistan has managed to play its cards more successfully than most.

“The Pakistanis have done a very good job of developing a positive relationship with President Trump,” a former U.S. diplomat who served during Trump’s first term told Foreign Policy, requesting anonymity to speak candidly.

“They’ve gamed Trump’s personality,” said Husain Haqqani, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011. “They gave him the praise that he wanted.”

Pakistan’s current ambassador to Washington, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, described Islamabad’s approach thus: “It’s persona, priorities, policy—in that order.”

Beyond the fondness for alliteration, however, it’s instructive to look at not only how Pakistan made the most of what it had—silver-tongued leaders and critical mineral reserves, for starters—but also how it made up for disadvantages in other areas by hiring lobbyists close to Trump and by exploiting his interest in cryptocurrencies. Crucially, all of this has come as Trump’s ties with the country’s geopolitical archrival, India, have frayed, upending a decades-long trend line in South Asia.

Commuters await transport near a billboard featuring Pakistan Chief of the Army Staff Gen. Asim Munir, along a street in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on May 14. Farooq Naeem/AFP via Getty Images

During a speech in Egypt in October, Trump called Munir his “favorite field marshal”—a knowing reference to the fact that Munir had become only the second Pakistani to hold that title. “Trump likes people who are in charge of their countries and he likes strongmen, said Haqqani. “Field Marshal Munir is very much in that category.”

Pakistan has spent big to figure out what else Trump likes. Islamabad shelled out millions of dollars earlier this year to hire multiple lobbying firms run by some of Trump’s former associates. (It’s also hired multiple external PR firms, one of which helped facilitate FP’s interview with the country’s current ambassador.)

But Pakistan’s earliest win with Trump came in February, when it helped the United States arrest Mohammad Sharifullah, the mastermind of a 2021 suicide bombing in Kabul during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members and around 170 Afghan civilians. “I want to thank, especially, the government of Pakistan for helping arrest this monster,” Trump said while addressing a joint session of Congress in early March, referring to Sharifullah.

Trump’s gratefulness represented a significant departure from his first term in office, when in 2018 he accused Pakistani leaders of “lies & deceit” before suspending most military aid to the South Asian country. “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt........

© Foreign Policy