With rare earths, deft diplomacy (and ample flattery), Pakistan shows how to deal with Trump 2.0

Islamabad
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As US President Donald Trump took a victory lap in front of world leaders following the Gaza ceasefire on Monday, he gave a shout-out to Pakistan’s top soldier, calling him his “favorite field marshal.”

He then relinquished the podium to allow Pakistan’s civilian leader, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, to deliver to the cameras his own praise of Trump’s ceasefire efforts. Sharif announced that same day he intended to nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize – again.

A year ago, such scenes would have been unthinkable.

Washington had long kept Pakistan at arm’s length, over its chronic political instability and alleged ties to US-sanctioned Islamist terror groups. The fact it’s one of China’s closest allies didn’t help either.

Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden never even called either of the two Pakistani prime ministers who served during his term. After the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, he enraged neighboring Pakistan by calling it “one of the most dangerous nations in the world.”

But Trump 2.0 has shaken the mixer of US diplomacy, upending friendships and bringing foes into the fold of his presidency – if they have something to offer.

And so far, Pakistan has delivered a masterclass in how to respond.

Its leaders have been regular guests at the White House and have escaped the tongue-lashings dished out to other heads of state; its military is awaiting a new shipment of US-made Raytheon missiles; and its diplomats have negotiated tariffs a good deal smaller than those imposed on neighbor and arch-rival India.

It seems to have accomplished this through a promise of preferential access to critical rare earths not controlled by China and judicious flattery of Trump.

So far Pakistan’s diplomatic game is raising cheers back home. It’s also enraging India, which has been left out in the cold and hit with huge tariffs for its continued purchases of cheap Russian oil.

In the thick of warming ties, analysts say, is Field Marshal Asim Munir, the chief of Pakistan’s powerful military, which has long played an outsize role in the country’s often tumultuous politics.

The 57-year-old son of a schoolteacher, Munir ran Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency before becoming top general in 2022. Insiders say he is a man of deliberate mystery, a dark horse who meticulously controls his public persona.

But in May he was thrust into the limelight when Pakistan fought a four-day conflict with India, in which dozens of soldiers and civilians were killed, and international alarm grew that the conflagration could spill into a fully fledged war between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

It wasn’t long before Trump got involved, calling on both sides to stop fighting. When they did, he claimed the credit. That was a claim quickly and publicly endorsed by Pakistan, which later nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize – the first country to do so during his second term.

India, meanwhile, repeated furious denials that the US president had played any role in silencing the guns, insisting the matter was between it and Pakistan only.

Pakistan has maintained that it downed seven Indian Air Force jets during the conflict in May, a number repeated multiple times in public by Trump. India has never confirmed the number and had initially vociferously denied any of its jets were downed.

Days later, Munir – recently promoted to field marshal over his helming of the crisis – traveled to Washington. There, he met Trump for lunch, in the first visit by a Pakistani army chief to the US president at the White House unaccompanied by Pakistani civilian officials.

Trump “likes winners,” Shuja Nawaz, a DC-based author and political and strategic analyst, told CNN.

“He’s always said that… he doesn’t like losers. And so he obviously saw in Field Marshal Asim Munir a winner who is willing to make quick decisions… they must have been on the same page when Trump talked to him about a ceasefire.”

US acknowledgement of Pakistan’s close ties to the Gulf and the Islamic world was on full display as Trump addressed the Gaza summit meeting on Monday.

“The current global moment does benefit Pakistan” due to its “its geographic proximity to that region, as well as its close partnerships with many of the key stakeholders there,” said Michael Kugelman, senior fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation.

Kugelman also cited Islamabad’s “pretty smooth relationship” with Iran, adding that for the Trump administration, Pakistan is a country “that could play the role… in the sense of taking a message from Washington to Tehran.”

Pakistan has history in helping the US conduct difficult conversations. In 1971 it helped arrange Henry Kissinger’s secret visit from Islamabad to Beijing, a trip that led to Washington normalizing relations with Mao Zedong’s communist China.

But the biggest card Pakistan has to play, analysts say, is access to the rare earths not controlled by China that are needed power everything from iPhones to MRI machines to the most advanced fighter jets and military weaponry.

China holds a near-monopoly on the global supply of the group of 17 types of minerals, especially dominating their processing and refinement. That’s an advantage Beijing has shown itself increasingly willing to leverage as it continues sparring with the US over tariffs, tech and economic issues.

That’s why Pakistan – home to around $8 trillion in untapped mineral wealth, according to its government – has aggressively pitched itself as a hub for critical minerals, and has caught Trump’s eye.

During the September Oval Office meeting, a picture released by the White House showed General Munir proudly presenting President Trump with a wooden box glittering with examples of minerals from Pakistan.

That same month, Missouri-based firm US Strategic Metals announced it had received the first shipment of “enriched rare earth elements and critical minerals” from the country, as part of a $500 million “partnership framework.” It did not specify the volume of the batch, which it said included antimony – often used as a flame retardant for plastics and an alloying agent – copper concentrate, and “rare earth elements with neodymium and praseodymium.”

Most of Pakistan’s rare earths are thought to be in Balochistan province, which has been rocked for years by a separatist insurgency that seeks greater political autonomy and economic development in the strategically important and mineral-rich region.

In August the US officially designated the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) – one of the major separatist groups, which Pakistan has long accused India of funding – as a terror organization.

The following month the US announced it had approved sales of Raytheon Advance Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) to Pakistan.

For some, Munir’s prominent role in deepening ties with the US have resurfaced fears about the military’s influence on Pakistan’s political landscape.

Since independence in 1947, Pakistan has been led by four different military rulers and seen three coups. Since the current constitution came into effect in 1973, no prime minister has completed a full five-year term.

Munir’s critics say he has tightened control over the military and exerted significant influence over government decisions, and even the Supreme Court.

Last month a report from Amnesty International said the state “continues to crack down on local rights activists and opposition party members for dissent and criticism of the state, especially the Pakistan Armed Forces.”

The Pakistani side of the “partnership” signed by Missouri’s US Strategic Metals is the Frontier Works Organization, a military-run company, ensuring the military will reap a chunk of the profits and clout should the partnership prove successful.

Asked by CNN to comment on relations with the US, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “Our bilateral partnership is built on a foundation of shared interests, including regional stability, security, and economic collaboration.”

But there’s a limit to how far this thawing of ties will go, analysts said.

Relations will always be at the mercy of Trump, said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US.

“Trump’s is an unconventional presidency,” said Haqqani, currently a scholar at Washington DC’s Hudson Institute and the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi.

“He now likes Pakistan because Pakistan likes him and has showered him with praise, including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.”