While the world is waiting to see if President Donald Trump will give his final approval to the agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and, perhaps, finally end the 2026 conflict between the United States and Iran, it is already clear that one of the most surprising events of the conflict has been the main role of Pakistan as a mediator.
It was Pakistan’s military leader, Field Marshal Asim Munir, who served as an important term in the conversation that led for the first two weeks of the cease-fire between the United States and Iran in early April, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that they had begun to be implemented. Several days later, Islamabad hosted the highest-level talks between the US government and Iran since 1979, including US Vice President JD Vance. On April 21, Trump announced the ceasefire had been extended, saying it was at the request of Pakistan. Munir has made two personal visits to Iran as part of his mediation efforts. the latest on May 21.
While the “P5+1” countries of the United Nations Security Council – the United States, China, Britain, France, and Russia, along with Germany – helped broker the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and Oman hosted US-Iranian talks in the run-up to war, Pakistan has been. of central and negotiating area of choice since the conflict began. The world’s only Muslim-majority nuclear power is a rare country with credibility on both sides of this war.
Pakistan’s heightened diplomatic role in the conflict is the latest sign of an unexpectedly close relationship between the country’s government and the second Trump administration. “Thank you to Pakistan and its great prime minister and great leader, two wonderful people!” Trump he wrote in a special publication of Social Reality in April. He praised Munir a lot, whom he has called “a unique person” and “my favorite stadium manager.”
Pakistan’s new role as an indispensable ally of the United States is partly due to the skillful Trumpian diplomacy of its government and partly due to how the international priorities of this administration have changed from the days when China and jihadi terrorism were at the top of the agenda.
How Pakistan went from pariah to ally in Washington
All this would have been hard to imagine during Trump’s first term, when Pakistan was often treated as a pariah.
On New Year’s Day in 2018, Trump it suspended most security aid to Pakistanwriting on Twitter, “The US has foolishly given Pakistan over $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking our leaders are fools.”
Trump would continue cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Pakistanwhich was a close ally of the United States in the fight against terrorism even amid allegations that it had provided safe harbor to Taliban militants fighting American forces in Afghanistan and maintained ties with other anti-American militants. Pakistan responded by stop intelligence sharing with the United States amid massive protests against the United States.
At the same time, Trump developed close ties with Pakistan’s arch-rival India and its prime minister, Narendra Modi. Modi’s brand of populist politics made him a natural ally for Trump, and India’s position as a great power rival to China made it a natural security partner for America. The one who supports India bows down US foreign policy continued in the Biden administrationand there was every expectation that it would be fulfilled when Trump returns in 2025.
Flattery and crypto: How Munir won against Trump
Pakistan’s transformation with the new Trump administration began in early March 2025, when the country arrested an ISIS-K soldier who was allegedly the mastermind of the Kabul airport suicide attack that killed 13 American soldiers on their way out of Afghanistan, and. to send him to the United Statesget public thanks from Trump.
Then came the short war of May 2025 between India and Pakistan. The Pakistani government publicly praised Trump for his “crucial leadership” in the diplomacy that ended the conflict and nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. The flattery worked: Trump brought up Pakistan’s nomination during the phone call with Modi and he was it is said to have angered the Indian leader he did not follow suit and, on the contrary, seemed to go out of his way to minimize America’s role.
Pakistan has also been seen to have good relations with personal style of diplomacy in the age of Trump, where the line between business and politics can be very narrow. Pakistan’s finance minister has signed an agreement with World Liberty Financial a cryptocurrency company founded by Trump’s sons and the sons of his diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Last year, Sharif also signed several memoranda on agreements to deliver essential minerals and rare earth objects from Pakistan to the United States. Pakistani officials have considered counter-terrorism, precious metals, and crypto as the “3 Cs” of their relationship with the Trump administration.
The current relationship has also undoubtedly been helped by the rise of Munir, a man Trump might describe as a military hero out of “thrown in the middle.” Pakistan would certainly not have such a role today if Imran Khan, the former cricket star turned anti-American prime minister – who took over in the middle of Trump’s first term – was still in power. Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in 2022, which Khan blamed on the military establishment and has been detained. corruption charges since 2023. With his removal, the army moved quickly to consolidate power.
The Pakistan Army has always played a large and complex role in Pakistani politics, wielding a large amount of power behind the scenes; the country has experienced several military coups. Since Munir, the former head of the country’s powerful military intelligence agency, was appointed army chief by Sharif in 2022, the nation has been in turmoil. very close to military dictatorship: A constitutional amendment passed in 2025 gave Munir full control over all branches of the military, including the nuclear forces, for a term that could last until 2030, and immunity from impeachment.
Trump has helped boost Munir’s status by hosting the army chief for lunch at the White House – a first Pakistani military leader instead than his prime minister who was chosen to host such an event.
How Pakistan is navigating America’s new priorities
If things are different now for the US and Pakistan, it is partly because the world is different. The US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 removed one of the main sources of tension in the US-Pakistani relationship: the Pakistani government’s claim of a two-sided game with the Taliban. In fact, Pakistan and Afghanistan which are now controlled by the Taliban have been fighting a brutal border conflict for months.
It also helps that the Trump administration is generally underrated Islamic terrorism this time. It has distanced itself from the “great power competition” with China, reducing the importance of India’s role. Relations between the US and India are generally volatile on issues ranging from India’s agricultural protectionism, immigration to the US, to India’s economic relations with Russia.
“The second Trump administration, in its foreign policy, is strategic; it is not replaced by strategic considerations, even compared to what it was during his first term,” said Michael Kugelman, senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council. “So in that regard, (the Trump administration) would have no qualms about embracing Pakistan, even though Islamabad has a very close alliance with Beijing.”
Pakistan has been gathering unlikely friends and allies in recent years. Even with close ties with the United States, Pakistan has exacerbated its situation military and economic relationship with China. (Xi Jinping he praised the “unbroken” friendship of his country and Pakistan during Sharif’s visit last month.)
In 2025, Pakistan signed a nuclear defense agreement with Saudi Arabia. This is particularly evident from Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons: Some analysts saw this as extending Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella to its allies in the Persian Gulf, though. others contested this interpretation.
Pakistan’s relationship with Saudi Arabia’s rival, Iran, is complicated, to say the least. It was only in 2024 that the two countries were suppressing missiles on each other’s territorybut they quickly reduce tension; since then they have cooperated in fighting separatist fighters and smugglers on their shared border. Munir, in particular, is it is believed to be very familiar and the Iranian military establishment since his days as Pakistan’s intelligence chief.
“They have proven to be nimble and nimble in making sure they are able to put all the balls in the air,” said Elizabeth Threlkeld, director of the South Asia program at the Stimson Center, referring to Pakistan’s international network of partnerships. “But they are also vulnerable to a number of shocks from different sources, given their position right now.”
Pakistan’s involvement in US diplomacy with Iran is not just an effort to curry favor with Trump. Islamabad needs the war to end as soon as possible. Pakistan is one of the countries most exposed to the economic effects of war: They usually import about two-thirds of its natural gas and 30 to 40 percent of its total imports through the Strait of Hormuz. Food and fuel prices are rising in the country. Adding that strong internal opposition to the US-led war among the population of Pakistan, especially the large number of Shiite minorities. Pakistan’s defense pact with Saudi Arabia also increases the risk of being drawn into a conflict in the Gulf.
If the war has highlighted Pakistan’s diplomatic skills, it has also sometimes exposed its limits. For all its efforts, Pakistan’s mediation has not been able to turn the April ceasefire into a permanent end to the conflict that is reopening the Straits. At some point, Pakistan has it seemed to misrepresent the actual positions of those parties in the hope of reaching an agreement. of Trump recent needs that some Muslim countries including Pakistan joined the Abraham Pact as part of the final Iran deal that did not go well in Pakistan, which it refused to recognize Israel from its inception.
The longer the war drags on, the more Pakistan’s involvement will be seen less as diplomatic skill and more as loyalty-taxing mudslinging. As India’s experience has shown, foreign governments are often glorified by Trump as long as they are necessary. If Pakistan cannot deliver the ceasefire that Trump is seeking, or if its priorities change again, it could once again find itself on the receiving end of Trump’s attacks.
