US-Pakistan Relations-IK’s U-turn
Following Pakistan’s independence in 1947, US-Pakistan relations got developed. USAcollaborate closely with Pakistan on a variety of topics. Those topics include counterterrorism, commerce, investment, health, and sustainable energy. The United States continues to be Pakistan’s top export market. It has been one of the greatest sources of foreign direct investment in Pakistan. The U.S. government supports this relationship by setting up business-to-business trade delegations. The US is also offering technical assistance and promoting business opportunities for American companies. They are doing it to create U.S.-Pakistan commercial partnerships.
Furthermore, trade and investment relations between the United States and Pakistan are still expanding.
Bilateral Economic Relations
According to IMF estimations, Pakistan is the 44th-largest economy in the world in 2022. Population-wise it is the fifth-largest country in the world. The United States has traditionally been Pakistan’s biggest export market in 2021. The US imported more Pakistani goods than any other country($5 billion).
Over the past 20 years, Pakistan has seen a lot of investment from the United States. U.S. direct investment in Pakistan surged by 50% in the most recent fiscal year. It is the highest level in more than ten years.
Consumer products, energy, chemicals, agriculture, business process outsourcing, transportation, and communications all receive a significant amount of U.S. investment. Senior representatives from the U.S. Departments of Commerce, State, and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) have met with Pakistani leaders. They are in an effort to strengthen commercial connections between the two countries. However, there are several aspects of Pakistan’s economic environment that require improvements. These aspects include regulation, intellectual property protection, and taxation. The United States and Pakistan are still collaborating to improve the economic climate.
Political Relations After US Withdrawal from Afghanistan
Following the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in 2021, the US ‘clearly distanced’ itself from Pakistan. Imran Khan praised Afghans for escaping “the shackles of enslavement.” Under the Biden administration, Pakistan declined an invitation to the US’s “Summit for Democracy.”
Imran Khan blamed US authorities, Donald Lu, during the 2022 Pakistani constitutional crisis. Earlier he referred to the US as the nation in question due to a “threat letter,” and warned that he would be overthrown by an American “regime change.”
Latest New: US-Pakistan relations
Ex-Prime Minister Imran khan wants to take US-Pakistan relations ahead. He says he wants to improve relations with the US, although he claims Washington treats Pakistan like a “slave“. Imran Khan, the chairman of the PTI, has reportedly changed his mind about his “foreign conspiracy narrative,” according to which the US-orchestrated his downfall from office by backing the opposition’s no-confidence vote in April of this year. He had been asserting that the opposition’s no-confidence vote against him was the product of a foreign plot. And it was because of his autonomous foreign policy regarding Pakistan’s relations with nations like China and Russia.
He also claimed that money was being channeled from abroad to remove him from office.
Khan expressed a willingness to engage with Washington in an interview with the Financial Times, stating that while accusing the US of treating Pakistan like a “slave,” he still wants to restore fences. If re-elected, the former prime minister declared he would no longer “blame” the US and would want a “dignified” relationship.
“As far as I’m concerned it’s over, it’s behind me,” He said that the purported plot, which is denied by both US and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Moreover, he remarked, “The Pakistan I want to lead must have good relationships with everyone, especially the United States.“
Further Statements: US-Pakistan Relations
“Our relationship with the US has been as of a master-servant relationship, or a master-slave relationship, and we’ve been used like a hired gun. But for that I blame my own governments more than the US,” Imran was reported by the British newspaper as having said in the interview.
The former prime minister Imran acknowledged that his journey to Moscow in February, a day before the invasion of Ukraine, was “embarrassing,” but he insisted that the trip had been planned for months.
In the Wazirabad district, where Khan was leading the long march, two shooters opened fire on him earlier this month. He suffered bullet injuries in his right leg. He charged that an assassination conspiracy against him was hatched by Prime Minister Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, and Major General Faisal Naseer.
Khan also criticized the IMF program, first started under his government in 2019 but revived by the PML-N-led government, for pushing austerity measures like higher fuel prices at a time of painful inflation.
“When you contract the economy, and some of the IMF measures make your economy shrink, how are you supposed to pay off your loans, because your loans keep increasing?” he remarked.
“Consumption has crashed… so my question is: How are we going to pay our debts? We are certainly going to head towards default.”
