ISLAMABAD: The United States plans to spend $101 million to strengthen democracy in Pakistan, address the threat of militancy and prevent Islamabad’s reliance on China in fiscal year 2025, said a senior American official who presented a written budget request to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
Budget requests, policy proposals and funding plans are frequently presented by relevant officials to various congressional committees in the US. These testimonies are part of the legislative process and are used to inform and persuade lawmakers about the importance of proposed expenditures and policy directions.
The overall budget proposal of $1.01 billion for South and Central Asia was presented by Donald Lu, the assistant secretary for the region, who said it represented a 1.9 percent decrease from fiscal year 2023.
“On Pakistan, we face ongoing challenges and opportunities,” he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “The President’s Budget requests a straight lining of our $101 million Pakistan budget.”
“That money would be used to strengthen democracy and civil society, to fight terrorism and violent extremism, and to support economic reforms and debt management to help stabilize Pakistan’s economy and prevent further overreliance on the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” he continued.
The American official, who was widely blamed by former prime minister Imran Khan’s party for contributing to his administration’s downfall, an allegation denied by Washington, said the US was struggling to compete with China in the region, which is seeking to secure military and commercial footholds in the Indian Ocean.
He also noted that the US administration had to “live in a world of constrained budgets.”
“Our most effective strategy to counter an assertive PRC is to demonstrate that we have something better to offer — better development opportunities, better commercial deals, and better solutions for their security challenges,” he added.