New Delhi: Islamabad, which barely received the time of day from the previous US administration, has seen positive momentum in its ties with Washington last week. On Sunday, US President Donald Trump went as far as to promise a boost to the trade with Pakistan.
The two countries had shared close political and military ties for decades, with a security angle, since at least the 1950s, peaking during the USSR’s war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. However, this transformed into a weary partnership during America’s War on Terror in the 2000s before touching a nadir. That was when former President Joseph Biden largely eschewed direct contact with any Pakistani prime ministers, Imran Khan or Shehbaz Sharif, during his tenure, save for a letter to Sharif after his election in March last year.
On Sunday, in a post on X, Pakistan PM Sharif said that, in Trump, “Pakistan has found a great partner who can reinvigorate our strategic partnership and strengthen Pakistan-US ties.”
This came a day after the US president was the first to announce a cessation of hostilities between India and Pakistan—mediated by Washington.
A day later, Trump, in another post on Truth Social, again waded into the issue around Jammu and Kashmir. “Additionally, I will work with you both to see if, after a ‘thousand years,’ a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir. God Bless the leadership of India and Pakistan on a job well done!!!,” said Trump in a post on Truth Social Sunday.
I am extremely grateful to President Trump for his pathbreaking leadership and commitment to global peace and for his most valuable offer to play a greater role in bringing lasting peace to South Asia.
For decades, Pakistan and the U.S. have been partners who worked together…
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) May 11, 2025
The Simla Agreement between India and Pakistan says all issues between the two countries will be handled bilaterally.
The push by Islamabad to reset its ties with the US comes as Washington, in recent years, has pivoted strongly towards India across a number of domains including security, defence and counter-terrorism. India has purchased a number of American defence platforms, while its domestic defence firms have increasingly become a part of the US’ military supply-chain, ThePrint earlier reported.
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Pakistan-US redux
The weightage of the ties can be viewed from the prism of a 2004 declaration by former US president George W Bush, who declared Pakistan a “major non-NATO ally”. While the designation does not indicate any treaty alliance between the two countries, it does give Pakistan a whole raft of privileges—those that it still enjoys till date.
Furthermore, Pakistan, was and has always been important for the US’s position in Afghanistan, starting from the 1980s and culminating in Bush War on Terror, which began in 2001.
In the 1980s Pakistan received F-16 fighter jets from the US—a deal which was scrapped in the 1990s after it tested out nuclear weapons. Eventually in 2005, under Bush, the US agreed to sell the fighters to Pakistan as its War on Terror heated up.
However, ties have been on the wane in the last decade, especially after Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was found to be living in a fortified compound in Abbottabad, a short distance from a camp of Pakistan’s military. He was killed in a special operation by the US in 2011.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration made a $397-million exemption from its foreign aid cuts for a programme that ensured US-supplied F-16s were used only for counterterrorism and not against India.
The amount was first allocated under Biden in 2022 for the maintenance of Pakistan’s ageing F-16 fleet. This undid a 2018 suspension of most security aid for Pakistan by first Trump administration for not taking enough action against terrorism.
The exemption demonstrates the duality of US policy concerning Islamabad in the recent years—maintaining the security partnership to an extent while limiting political engagement.
We thank President Trump for his leadership and proactive role for peace in the region .
Pakistan appreciates the United States for facilitating this outcome, which we have accepted in the interest of regional peace and stability.
We also thank Vice President JD Vance and…
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) May 10, 2025
For instance, while the exemption was announced in February, the first call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar was on 7 April, nearly four months after Trump was inaugurated as president.
Again, while the Biden administration had limited political contact at the highest levels, US military commanders in CENTCOM (Central Command) continued to visit Pakistan and engage with its military.
However, last week—when conflict erupted India and Pakistan between after the deadly terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam—Rubio has spoken to Sharif twice, and to Dar and Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir once each. Pakistan’s push to credit the US for the bilateral understanding, further demonstrate its attempts to reset ties at the political level.
The history of US-Pakistan ties
The US established diplomatic ties with Pakistan after its Independence in 1947. In 1954, the two countries signed a Mutual Defence Assistance Agreement, setting the stage for the strategic ties between the two countries.
By 1955, Pakistan joined the Baghdad Pact (later renamed as the Central Treaty Organisation) and the Manila Pact (Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation)—both were Western-led military alliance similar to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
This put Pakistan firmly in the western camp at a time when the world was divided between the US and Russia during the Cold War. According to reports, between 1953 and 1961, Pakistan received roughly $2 billion in aid, a quarter of it being military assistance.
Pakistan allowed the US, at this crucial time, to launch spy planes from its air bases. In the 1960, it led to the U-2 incident—when a American spy plane flying over the Soviet Union to its final destination, an airbase in Norway, was shot down by the Soviets. The plane had taken off from an airbase near Peshawar.
By 1965, before the second war between India and Pakistan, Islamabad was considered to be the “most allied ally” of the US in Asia. However, when the war started, the US closed off military aid to both Pakistan and India.
While, with India, the ban on military assistance continued for decades, with Pakistan the US continued its assistance through the following decades, especially in the 1980s.
In 1970, Islamabad played a role in the backchannel negotiations between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which eventually led to President Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972. The US resumed military aid to Pakistan in 1975.
In 1981, the Ronald Regan administration announced a six-year $3.2 billion military aid and economic assistance programme for Islamabad, which saw Pakistan also sign a separate deal for the F-16 fighter jets.
In the following years, Islamabad became a key route to ferry weapons to the Afghanistan mujahideen, which was funded by the US during the Soviet-Afghan war and the subsequent First Afghan Civil War. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988, and its eventual dissolution in 1991, US-Pakistan ties hit a roadblock, with Washington taking a look at Islamabad’s nuclear programme at the time.
Eventually, ties thawed in 2001, when al-Qaeda carried out terrorist attacks on US soil on 9 September that year and Islamabad once again becoming an important security partner for the US, with a focus on Afghanistan. Between 2002 and 2008, Pakistan received billions of economic and military assistance from the US.
Speaking before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 2007, then US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, Richard A. Boucher, said, “Since 2002 the United States has provided security assistance to Pakistan totaling $1.9 billion. This has included $1.2 billion in foreign military financing, $244 million in department of state counter-narcotics funding and $87 million in department of defense counter-narcotics funding, and $37.2 million in Section 1206 counter-terrorism funding.”
In 2009, US president Barack Obama signed a $7.5 billion deal for economic assistance to Pakistan over the following five years, showcasing the longevity of ties between the two nations. However, relations were strained following the US raid on Bin Laden’s safe house in May 2011.
Pakistan’s importance however diminished after US withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021
the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, which saw the Biden approach imposed, with little political engagement. However, the current messaging emanating from Islamabad, along with its snapping up of former Trump alumni as lobbyists in Washington in recent weeks, indicate its intention to reset the current state of political ties.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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