After the recent drone attacks on the Kurram agency and the US accusing Pakistan of providing a safe haven to terrorist organizations, the relationship between Pakistan and US seems to be on a significant decline.
A recent tweet by President Donald Trump was- “”The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools.” This makes it clear that US isn’t going to extend any more aid to Pakistan.
And soon enough the U.S. announced in its new policy that it would withhold more than $1 billion in aid to Pakistan by suspending a $255 million tranche of aid under the foreign military financing programme and at least another $900 million in coalition support funds reimbursement.
Pakistani officials however have found these statements and actions unfair. Pakistan’s ambassador for the US Mr. Aizaz Chaudhry was recently quoted saying-“Sometimes we are viewed through the lens of Afghanistan, and since United States is not making progress in Afghanistan, that could actually be up against failure. Perhaps it is through — because of Pakistan — and therefore a tendency to view Pakistan in that narrow lens.”
Whereas in a recent interview Pakistan’s defense minister Khurram Dastgir Khan said his country was undergoing a “regional recalibration” of its “foreign and security policy.” The fact that we have recalibrated our way towards better relations with Russia, deepening our relationship with China, is a response to what the Americans have been doing,” he claimed.
Talks have allegedly begun between Pakistan and Russia to buy a batch of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets although for now the Pakistan Air Force primarily uses the US manufactured F-16 planes and Khan claims that they haven’t received spare parts from a long time.
Pakistan is also moving towards an alliance with China and this had started before Trump’s January tweet. Pakistan’s foreign minister Khawaja Asif had said his country should begin to diplomatically move away from the U.S. and align itself with its powerful neighbors. “China lives next to us and we have a common wall,” Asif told a seminar in Islamabad, broadcaster Dawn News reported.
How these new political ties pan out is something for the US to watch out for.