The United States and Pakistan are reviving defence and minerals cooperation in a bid to reset their uneasy ties, marking a policy shift that has stirred anxiety in India even as Washington seeks to reassure New Delhi.
Washington has approved hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades for Pakistan’s ageing F-16 fighter jets and opened the door to more than US$1 billion in financing for US companies involved in critical minerals projects in the South Asian nation.
These moves mark the most substantive warming in US-Pakistan ties since Donald Trump returned to the White House, in sharp contrast to his first term, when Washington froze military aid to Islamabad and accused it of duplicity in the “war on terror”.
The US embassy in Islamabad said on Wednesday last week that the US$686 million package would modernise Pakistan’s F-16 fleet and extend its operational life to 2040.
That same day, the US Export-Import Bank announced it would make US$1.25 billion in financing available to American firms supplying equipment and machinery for the Reko Diq copper and gold project in Balochistan, a restive province in western Pakistan.
