Connexion
How Pakistan GLAZED its way into Trump’s favor
Pakistan’s sudden turnaround with the Trump administration didn’t happen by chance.
Just weeks before the White House announced unusually favorable tariff cuts for Pakistan — and steep hikes for India — Pakistan launched a multimillion-dollar lobbying blitz in Washington.
In April and May, Pakistan spent at least THREE TIMES MORE than India on US lobbying, hiring six firms tied to Trump insiders, including former business partners, advisers & his ex-bodyguard.
The nearly $5 million in contracts promised what Pakistan wanted most: direct access to Trump and a push to “reset” diplomatic, military and commercial ties.
On April 2, Trump announced a 29% tariff on Pakistani goods.
Within days, Pakistan had hired two additional lobbying teams, including Orchid Advisors — which subcontracted with Squire Patton Boggs, a firm employing Trump’s former economic adviser Everett Eissenstat and former defense secretary Mark Esper.
Four months later, Trump slashed Pakistan’s tariff rate to 19% — while raising India’s to 50%.
After border tensions with India, Islamabad lavished Trump with praise, credited him with ending the crisis, and even moved to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize — a gesture India refused.
Pakistan also pitched a $500 million mineral extraction deal and opened its markets to US agricultural products, further sweetening the relationship.
By autumn, Trump was calling Pakistan’s army chief his “favorite field marshal” and describing Pakistan’s support for his Gaza peace plan as “incredible.”
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Of course, the bad news for Pakistan is that it will not last long. If once one starts to pay the grift, it will never end.
This is a very serious conversation – the day before Xi-Trump.
Enter The Beast – or The Giant Pigeon – as the current frightening incarnation of the Empire of Chaos.
Boom! This confirms what I’ve been saying for months: the US is, in fact, withdrawing from Asia. The Pentagon’s latest National Defense Strategy – which draft just landed on the Defense Secretary’s desk – is de-prioritizing “deterring China” in favor of focusing on the US homeland and the Western hemisphere (politico.com/news/2025/09/0).
This is all the more striking given that the drafting of the National Defense Strategy was led by Eldridge Colby, who literally wrote a book on deterring China called “the strategy of denial” (and with whom long-time followers will know I had many heated exchanges here on X). Now that he is in power and has access to actual intelligence, he must have understood how futile the effort would be.
Back in June I got a lot of flak for my article “Has America in fact already withdrawn from Asia?” (open.substack.com/pub/arnaudbert) in which, drawing from the writings of Australian military strategist Hugh White, I argued that everything pointed to the fact that beneath the hawkish “pivot to Asia” rhetoric, America was actually quietly executing a strategic retreat.
It was only a matter of time before it would be made official, which is what the Pentagon is apparently now doing In fact the focus on its homeland in the new National Defense Strategy means that the US isn’t only withdrawing from Asia but implementing a full-on strategic retreat on all fronts, which I also argued Trump was orchestrating in a July article entitled “Is Trump orchestrating a full-on strategic retreat on all fronts?”: arnaudbertrand.substack.com/p/is-trump-orc
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