Wilson Center Conference on US-Pakistan Relations
By Elaine Pasquini
Washington: The future of US-Pakistan relations was the subject of an April 27 conference co-hosted by the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute and Pakistan Initiative, together with the Houston-based nonprofit International Academy of Letters USA.
Opening the conference, Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, reminded attendees that the United States has had a longer alliance with Pakistan than with any other country in South Asia.
Ghazanfar Hashmi, president of International Academy of Letters USA, noted the need for the US and Pakistan to “find a partnership that advances our shared interests and mirrors our mutual ambitious goals.”
In his keynote address, Masood Khan, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, thanked the US for its assistance with the devasting floods last year and also during the Covid pandemic.
Since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the two countries have retained their security cooperation framework to promote stability in Afghanistan, counter terrorism and foster regional security. In that regard, the United States has declared openly and publicly it would “not see Pakistan through the prism of Afghanistan, India, or China,” Khan said. “Both sides have affirmed that they would work for a stand-alone broad-based relationship that will stand on its own.”
In the past several months, resolute efforts have been made on both sides to scale up their economic partnership. In addition, high level dialogues have been held on health, energy, climate change, countering narcotics, counterterrorism and defense. “These processes are producing results and defining a pathway for future cooperation and future growth of our relationship and are creating a structure for an overarching multidimensional dialogue,” the ambassador said.
With the increasing involvement of the US public and private sectors, green energy projects are increasing, especially those involving solar and wind power, he continued. The US is Pakistan’s largest export market and “Pakistan is working to improve ease of doing business with the US and other countries,” he added.
Despite Pakistan’s current difficulties – which the country will definitely overcome, the ambassador said, “Pakistan’s economy should be seen as part of a regional business ecosystem with Pakistan as a hub, a conduit and a destination for trade and investment.” In addition, Pakistan’s “130 million youth make it the next vibrant business pivot,” he added.
For strategic stability in South Asia, the ambassador called for US to restore military financing and military sales to Pakistan, which was suspended under the previous US administration.
Pointing out that Pakistan and the US share ideas and values that bind them together, he noted the US Embassy in Islamabad invokes Quaid-i-Azam’s famous quote: “Democracy is in our blood. Democracy is in the blood of Pakistan; it is in the blood of the United States, and our two countries must continue to demand and work toward the achievement of our highest democratic ideals.”
Pakistan seeks to forge strong ties with the United States and make them even stronger, Ambassador Khan concluded. “The future of Pakistan-United States’ relations is bright. Let’s work together to make it brighter.”
Elizabeth Horst, deputy assistant secretary for Pakistan at the US State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, noted that Pakistan and the US conduct more than $9 billion annually in trade and are taking steps to increase that number, including recently holding the first trade and investment framework agreement council meeting in seven years.
Almost half of Pakistan’s population is under the age of 22, she said. “We know that these young people are the future of our relationship and that’s why we continue to invest in education.” The US government brings approximately 800 Pakistanis to the United States every year. Last month, she related, the United States announced 500 more scholarships for Pakistani university students from flood-affected districts to assist them in completing their degrees.
The US government, she said, is going to provide the Management Science Department’s electric vehicle research and development center at Lahore University with half a million dollars to help roll out domestically produced electric vehicles for the Pakistani market at a commercial scale.
Last month, the US government funded the visit of a delegation of 16 Pakistani scientists to the United States as part of the Punjab-California Sister State Agreement to learn from California’s experience overcoming air pollution.
Looking forward, she pointed out the US and Pakistan could work together on the economy, trade, investment, regional stability and global challenges, like climate and health.
Following the keynote addresses, Hassan Abbas, Kalsoom Lakhani, Esperanza Gomez Jelalian, Baqir Sajjad and Jumaina Siddiqui discussed the prospects and pitfalls of US-Pakistan relations.
Siddiqui said the two countries would continue to work on climate-related issues, including addressing future climate change impacts and how they rebuild strategically after last year’s floods. Ten million people still don’t have access to clean drinking water in the flood-affected areas. Almost two million people are still living near standing water and children are feeling the brunt of the disaster with water-borne diseases, severe malnutrition, and the unavailability of vaccines for preventable diseases, such as polio and measles, which are re-emerging in Pakistan, she lamented.
In the closing panel on perspectives of the diaspora on the two countries’ relationship, Rick Khan, former senior advisor to the deputy secretary of state at the US State Department, pointed out that Pakistan’s cheap labor, along with English being the country’s second language, make it an attractive business market for partnering with the United States to strengthen Pakistan’s economy. Tourism, he suggested, is also a sector to be more highly developed, pointing out the great winter skiing the country has to offer. Others on the panel included Asaf Qadeer, Ambereen Mirza, Nasruddin Rupani and Ghazanfar Hashmi.
In final statements, Hashmi called for more cultural and public diplomacy initiatives in the future between Pakistan and the United States.
(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)
