The Financial Times (FT) reported in late August that “Pakistan seeks US funding in shift from reliance on China”. Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb confirmed late July’s report from Reuters that his country requested a $10 billion bailout from the US and also told them that “he saw a ‘very important role’ for the Export-Import Bank of the United States (ExIm Bank) and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)”. He then specified exactly what he has in mind.
The FT wrote that “He said ExIm Bank could finance sales of Boeing aircraft to the newly privatised Pakistan International Airlines and help US companies to upgrade Pakistan’s oil refineries, while DFC could take equity stakes in Pakistani conglomerates.” Aurangzeb also confirmed that “Pakistan was not seeking additional financing from China” but will issue $750 million of renminbi-denominated “panda bonds” along with an unknown amount of Eurobonds and rupee-denominated dollar-settled bonds.
Taken together, this amounts to a pro-US financial pivot, which shouldn’t surprise observers since the US is Pakistan’s largest export market and Pakistan is the US’ “Major Non-NATO Ally”. It’s also traditionally functioned as the US’ regional proxy. These facts are crucial to be reminded of since some commentators and experts alike have fallen under the false impression that Pakistan’s US-Iranian mediation as well as the new Islamic NATO between itself, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye are proof of it drifting away from the US.
Nothing could be further from the truth as Aurangzeb just inadvertently confirmed through his de facto declaration of a pro-US financial pivot. The reality is that his country is actually drifting away from China, not the US, though it’ll never seriously worsen relations with China since they share similar threat assessments of their mutual Indian neighbor. All of this is directly due to April 2022’s post-modern coup against former multipolar Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was then persecuted and jailed by the state.
It was under his brief leadership that Pakistan attempted to rebalance relations with the US, which was completely unacceptable for America and its proxies in Pakistan, ergo why he was ousted. At the time, however, a nefarious information warfare narrative was artificially inserted into the domestic political discourse lying that he was secretly subordinating Pakistan to the US at the expense of China’s interests. That was in retrospect an insidious attempt to mislead naïve multipolar supporters ahead of the coup.
Over the past nearly half-decade since then, the last two de facto military dictators were able to consolidate their control over the country, while the latest one spent the past year and a half schmoozing up to Trump as part of the rapid US-Pakistani rapprochement that followed Khan’s removal. The stage is now set for actively implementing what’s been the plan this entire time, namely Pakistan’s comprehensive re-subordination to the US, of which its newly declared financial pivot is a major part.
The consequent expansion of US financial influence throughout the Pakistani economy will greatly reduce the chances that Pakistan ever regains its already flimsy sovereignty. It’ll still remain close to China due to their shared threat assessment of India, which is a national security priority that the ruling military-intelligence establishment considers to be of existential importance, but pretty much every other aspect of its policies will fall under US control. This crucially includes its role in the Islamic NATO.
