ISLAMABAD: The new United States (US) administration of President Donald Trump will continue viewing Pakistan through the “China-India lens,” Pakistani foreign affairs experts said on Monday, as Islamabad pledged to strengthen its relations with Washington.
Trump’s inauguration is scheduled for Monday at 1700 GMT inside the Capitol Rotunda as he returns to the presidency four years after being voted out during a pandemic-driven economic collapse, marking an unprecedented political comeback.
Relations between Islamabad and Washington, once close allies, had been strained because of Pakistan’s alleged support of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a claim Islamabad denies. Ties worsened further during the tenure of Prime Minister Imran Khan, who welcomed the Taliban’s 2021 takeover and accused Washington of trying to oust him. Since Khan’s ouster in 2022, PM Shehbaz Sharif’s government has made frequent efforts to repair the damaged relations.
But Pakistani foreign affairs experts believe that the US is unlikely to seek a significant expansion of ties with Islamabad in the near future and will approach it keeping its China and India policies in view, and remaining largely focused on security cooperation, particularly in counterterrorism and Afghanistan.
“The biggest challenge for Pakistan is that the Trump administration will continue its previous policies of looking at Pakistan through the China-India lens,” Dr. Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, a professor at Quaid-e-Azam University’s School of Politics and International Relations, told Arab News.
“Now, the biggest challenge for us is how to convince the Americans that though we will be not a part of the American policies to contain China, but at the same time, we could be a part of Americans’ policies in addressing the non-traditional security challenges and on Afghanistan.”
He said the new Trump administration could use the incarceration of Pakistani political figures, including ex-PM Khan, to influence the incumbent Pakistani government.
“People think that Imran Khan is an established fact, the political divide in Pakistan exists and that divide could be exploited by the external powers for pursuing their agendas within the country or in the region,” Dr. Jaspal added.
Trump’s special envoy nominee Richard Grenell urged President Joe Biden’s administration to use its last days in power to push for the release of Khan, who has been in jail for more than a year on a slew of charges, so he could run for office in Pakistan.
While a Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson declined to comment on Grenell’s statement at the time, the Pakistani government and allies have criticized Grenell’s comments.
On Monday, Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said Pakistan maintained close relations with the US, marked by multi-layered cooperation in economy, trade, people-to-people connections, security and counter-terrorism, and Islamabad seeks to further solidify them.
“Pakistan-US relations have a very long history, and the relations remain rich and dense, and we would continue to work with the new administration to further solidify and strengthen this vital relationship,” Shafqat told Arab News.
“We seek to further strengthen these ties by ensuring the continued positive growth of bilateral relations.”
Senator Sherry Rehman, who has previously served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, said every transition offers opportunities for a reset, and Pakistan needs to state its own goals for a broader bilateral path to widen its relationship with the US from a highly “securitized” lens to a more robust economic and commercial one.
“Islamabad should make a clear agenda with defined milestones for consistent engagement over better terms of trade, not just wait for Washington to respond to regional headwinds, in which Pakistan finds itself seeking balance against an Indian arms race in South Asia,” she told Arab News.
“There should be no diplomatic diffidence in stating the country’s strategic interests while iterating confidence in rebuilding trust between the two countries [Pakistan and the US].”
Masood Khan, another former Pakistani ambassador to the US, said Pakistan should try to invest “new energy” into economic cooperation between the two countries and remove any “shackles” in the strategic domain.
“The full contours of President Trump’s policy toward South Asia haven’t become very clear, but we have shared strategic interests in the region and beyond,” he told Arab News.
“This is called Trump 2.0, so it will not be the repetition of the previous tenure,” he said, adding that Trump is more “clear-headed and more forthright” regarding his priorities this time.
Dr. Salma Malik, another foreign affairs expert, said if the US adopts policies directed against China, every action or policy decision it takes will have a “direct or indirect impact on Pakistan.”
“Therefore, it is important not to overreact or panic, instead, we should cautiously approach developments, assess opportunities, and respond accordingly,” she said.
New Trump administration to view Pakistan through ‘China-India lens’ as Islamabad pledges stronger ties — experts
https://arab.news/nsk7u
New Trump administration to view Pakistan through ‘China-India lens’ as Islamabad pledges stronger ties — experts
- Islamabad-Washington ties, strained over Pakistan’s alleged support of Taliban, further worsened after ex-PM Khan blamed his ouster on Washington
- Analysts suggest Islamabad to make a clear agenda with defined milestones, cautiously approach developments in relations and respond accordingly
Pakistan partners with Swiss firm to provide free cancer treatment to patients
- In Pakistan, more than 185,000 new cancer cases and over 125,000 deaths are reported annually
- Under the agreement, Roche Pakistan will bear 70% cost of cancer medicines, government will pay 30%
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has partnered with a leading Swiss pharmaceutical firm, Roche, to provide costly cancer treatment to Pakistani patients free of cost, the country’s health minister said on Friday, as the two sides signed an agreement in this regard.
Cancer is an insidious disease, alarmingly shaping the global health crisis as it claims millions of lives each year. Responsible for one in six deaths worldwide, cancer cases are projected to reach 26 million annually by 2030, with developing countries shouldering 75% of this burden.
Over 70% of cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where survival rates hover at just 30%. The reasons are manifold, including inadequate access to early detection and treatment services, lack of awareness, and societal taboos, to name a few.
In Pakistan alone, more than 185,000 new cases and more than 125,000 deaths are reported annually. Breast cancer is the most common, accounting for 16.5% of cases, followed by lip and oral cavity cancers (8.6%) and lung cancer (5.1%), according to Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH).
“Roche Pakistan has proposed to the government many years ago that the cure for this cancer is only with them... and they want to do a partnership with the Government of Pakistan. They want to give 70% of the price of the medicine,”
Health Minister Mustafa Kamal said, adding the government would bear the rest of the 30% cost of treatment.
“And whoever is given this medicine should be given it free of cost.”
Kamal shared that cancer treatment in Pakistan costs around Rs9.8 million ($34,588) in five years on an average.
“[Most] people don’t have this (amount). So, this was a very important project,” he said.
Citing a World Health Organization (WHO) report, the health minister said millions of Pakistanis, who were not born poor, had fallen below the poverty line after falling sick.
“Houses were sold, plots were sold, jewelry was sold, everything was sold and illness made them poor,” he said, praising Roche Pakistan for its support.
Speaking at the agreement-signing ceremony, Roche Pakistan Managing Director Hafsa Shamsie called it “just the first step.”
“We will enhance the number of patients, we will enhance the disease areas, and God willing, we will go into other parts of the patient journey, like awareness and diagnosis,” she said.
Pakistan last year vaccinated over 10 million adolescent girls against a virus that causes cervical cancer as part of a continuing national campaign that has overcome early setbacks fueled by skeptics online.
Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer among Pakistani women after breast and ovarian cancers. Globally, it is the fourth most common. Each year, between 18,000 and 20,000 women in Pakistan die of the disease, according to health authorities.
The girls targeted in the initial campaign were in Punjab and Sindh provinces and in Azad Kashmir. The country plans to expand the coverage to additional areas by 2027, hoping to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem by 2030. It became the 149th country to add the HPV vaccine to its immunization schedule.
