 "Why the Trump-Munir bromance is unlikely to last long")
It’s only August, but Donald Trump’s resurrection of Pakistan — written off as a failed state even by its traditional allies, including America — is already destined to go down as one of the most bizarre developments of 2025 yet, next only to his vindictive tariff wars that threaten to destabilise the global trade order.
Even by his own standards of notoriously seasonal now-on-now-off bromances, Trump’s sudden crush on Asim Munir, Pakistan’s unpopular army chief, has puzzled many in his own MAGA crowd.
On the face of it, America stands to derive no tangible benefit from cultivating a country Trump himself once witheringly denounced as a haven for terrorists.
The commentariat is buzzing with speculation, and two popular theories dominate the debate.
The first: it’s an attempt to wean Pakistan away from China. But considering the extent of Chinese involvement and investment in Pakistan, Beijing is unlikely to let it go without a fight. Pakistan, too, is unlikely to ditch a dependable partner for a historically unreliable ally — especially knowing how unpredictable Trump can be.
The second, and more plausible, theory is that Trump’s pivot is driven by the Trump family’s business interests linked to a dubious cryptocurrency project promoted by the Pakistani government.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIn May, Pakistan unveiled the country’s first government-led Strategic Bitcoin Reserve at the “Bitcoin Vegas 2025” event. It also allocated 2,000 megawatts of surplus electricity in the first phase for bitcoin mining and AI data centres as part of initiatives aimed at presenting itself as an emerging player in the crypto economy.
Trump’s business-savvy children and extended family members clearly smell big bucks here, though independent commentators remain sceptical of Pakistan’s claims about the scheme’s potential.
Whatever the motive, Trump’s so-called “Pakistan pivot” has caught even many in Pakistan by surprise.
A few months ago, if anyone had suggested that Munir would soon be swanning around Washington and feted by the US president himself, they would have been laughed out of court.
But as Henry Kissinger once candidly said: “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”
So, suddenly, out of the blue, Trump had an epiphany that it was in America’s interest to embrace (or rather, re-embrace) Pakistan — after unceremoniously dumping it not so long ago in favour of a heavily advertised strategic relationship with India.
Even more surprising was the timing of this resurrection — coming amid serious allegations of Islamabad’s role in the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 innocent tourists.
As if it was not bad enough that Munir was wined and dined by Trump, he was allowed to use American soil to make incendiary anti-India statements, including issuing nuclear threats.
And all this because India denied Trump the pleasure of claiming credit for brokering the ceasefire with Pakistan — which, in his view, damaged his chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize he believed was in his pocket after Pakistan and several of America’s other obsequious allies nominated him for it.
Ever since, Trump has been behaving like a man scorned, with India’s stock in the White House steadily going down and Pakistan’s going up.
Pakistan has even persuaded Washington to designate the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and its affiliate, the Majeed Brigade (TMB), as foreign terrorist organisations.
This had been a long-standing demand of Islamabad and would likely have remained frozen — but for the sudden rush of enthusiasm in the White House to pull Pakistan out of mothballs as a reward for its loyalty.
India, meanwhile, is facing punishing export tariffs for daring not to accept Trump’s diktat to stop buying oil from Russia.
High on Trump’s newfound love, Pakistan has stepped up its anti-India rhetoric — the most recent being Munir’s threat to nuke India if faced with a threat to its security.
Addressing the Pakistani diaspora in Tampa, Florida, he reportedly boasted: “We are a nuclear nation. If we think we are going down, we’ll take half the world down with us.”
Munir, on an official visit to America, went on to warn that Islamabad would destroy Indian infrastructure if water flow to Pakistan was hit because of India’s decision to suspend the Indus Water Treaty after the Pahalgam attack.
“We will wait for India to build a dam, and when they do so, we will destroy it,” Munir said, according to a report in The Dawn on Monday. He also harped on the old Pakistani refrain that Kashmir was Pakistan’s “jugular vein.”
Pakistani rulers have a long history of sabre-rattling. Remember Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s threat to fight a “thousand-year war” with India in a speech to the UN in 1965? And he was a much more cultured man than the fundamentalist “Hafiz” Munir.
Given this history, India should have caught on to the trick by now and learnt not to dignify every Pakistani provocation with an official reaction. The Ministry of External Affairs’ decision to take official note of an obscure speech made in faraway Tampa to impress the Pakistani diaspora handed Islamabad a chance to issue a lengthy rejoinder accusing India of “distorting facts” and “twisting statements out of context.”
It claimed that Pakistan remained “firmly opposed” to the use or threat of force — a claim which will convince few, even in pro-Pakistan quarters.
For the record, here’s MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal’s statement: “Nuclear sabre-rattling is Pakistan’s stock-in-trade. The international community can draw its own conclusions on the irresponsibility inherent in such remarks, which also reinforce the well-held doubts about the integrity of nuclear command and control in a state where the military is hand-in-glove with terrorist groups.”
In a pointed criticism of the Trump administration, the MEA “regretted” that “these remarks should have been made from the soil of a friendly third country.”
American commentators, too, have slammed Munir’s statement, with one of the strongest criticisms coming from former Pentagon official Michael Rubin. Dubbing Munir “Osama bin Laden in a suit,” he accused Pakistan of acting like “a rogue state” and called for it to be declared a terrorist state — and Munir a persona non grata.
Meanwhile, even as Pakistan celebrates its honeymoon with Trump, it should be careful before preening too much, given Trump’s well-known volatile mood swings.
Don’t forget that India, too, once enjoyed a pretty close relationship with Trump — until one day he changed his mind after Delhi began questioning his claims of brokering India-Pakistan peace and ignored his demands on Russian oil imports.
Pakistan itself has been here before — smothered with hugs and kisses when considered useful to American interests and unceremoniously dumped when no longer needed.
Only Munir can be delusional enough to believe it will be different this time. Good luck, sir.
Hasan Suroor is author of ‘Unmasking Secularism: Why We Need A New Hindu-Muslim Deal’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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