WASHINGTON: Any doubts that the Trump management will play hardball with allies previous and found in pursuit of its America First policy should evaporate after the Pentagon announced on Saturday that it was once scrapping $ 300 million in assist to Pakistan just forward of secretary of state Mike Pompeo's visit there next week.
Pompeo and top US army officials are scheduled to forestall through in Islamabad en direction New Delhi on September five, and the Trump management looked to be sending a tricky message to a dodgy best friend it has noticed as recalcitrant and non-compliant towards American goals in the region, together with stabilising Afghanistan and according geo-political primacy to India.
"Due to a lack of Pakistani decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy the remaining $300 million was reprogrammed," Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Kone Faulkner stated after Congress, at the Trump management's bidding, had earlier stripped every other $ 500 million in Coalition Support Funds to Pakistan, bringing the whole assist loss to Islamabad to $ 800 million.
The management's "South Asia Strategy" as enunciated through President Trump comes to bringing peace to Afghanistan with India's lend a hand, and further growing US strategic partnership with India. Pakistan, which has lengthy situated itself as an equal to India with claims of longer and nearer ties to Washington, has both resented and resisted this. Trump's reaction has been to play hardball as an alternative of pandering - as previous management did - to Islamabad's bluster.
Trump himself set the tone with a new year's tweet announcing the United States "has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"
The State Department, which for lengthy treated Islamabad with kid gloves and made emollient gestures each time Pakistan threw a tantrum, is now bending to the President's will, as is the Pentagon, which has had an extended institutional dating with Pakistan going again to the Cold War.
In fact, the present management has redefined the aid philosophy to Pakistan, denying it even the so-called Coalition Support Funds (CSF), which Islamabad has lengthy argued is money that are supposed to be reimbursed to it for its logistical give a boost to to the USA project in Afghanistan.
Amid recrimination that Pakistan is fudging accounts and the USA is penny pinching, Washington is now suggesting Pakistan has to pay for its personal folly of fostering terrorism in the region that has taken the lives of Afghans, Indians, and Americans.
By announcing that assist would be "reprogrammed", the management has left open the possibility that it might be reconstituted if Pakistan fell consistent with U.S goals, whilst signaling it's in a position with even harsher steps if Islamabad remained defiant. Among them is slicing off the global monetary help spigot, together with Pakistan's common forays for give a boost to at IMF and the World Bank, the place Washington wields really extensive influence.
In the previous Pakistan often attempted to bluff its manner out of bother and commitments to the U.S.by positioning itself as an indispensable gateway to landlocked Afghanistan and unsubtly threatening that it will best friend itself fully with China. But even as the Trump management shrugged off the danger, Beijing, which has its personal problems with Washington, has didn't deliver Pakistan from economic troubles. The Trump management has also constructed at the previous management's downsizing of logistical dependence on Pakistan whilst bluntly indicating it may inflict critical economic pain at the country.
Ties between the 2 countries are now so fraught that they may no longer even agree on what transpired in a telephone name between Pompeo and Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan final month (Trump did not deign to speak with him).
The State Department stated Pompeo raised the issue of Pakistan taking decisive motion against all terrorists running in the country; Islamabad stated the issue did not arise at all. The State Department then relayed a transcript of the telephone name to Islamabad, shutting up a rustic that according to President Trump, has lengthy fooled Washington with "lies and deceit".
Pakistan isn't on my own in feeling the Trump burn. Countries from neighboring Canada and Mexico to distant Palestine or even India are feeling the "Trump burn" bobbing up from its America first outlook.
Ahead of the Pompeo visit, the Trump management has indicated that New Delhi isn't an automatic candidate for sanctions waiver with admire to its army purchases from Russia, and some exhausting bargaining is at the playing cards on that and different business problems.
Pompeo and top US army officials are scheduled to forestall through in Islamabad en direction New Delhi on September five, and the Trump management looked to be sending a tricky message to a dodgy best friend it has noticed as recalcitrant and non-compliant towards American goals in the region, together with stabilising Afghanistan and according geo-political primacy to India.
"Due to a lack of Pakistani decisive actions in support of the South Asia Strategy the remaining $300 million was reprogrammed," Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Kone Faulkner stated after Congress, at the Trump management's bidding, had earlier stripped every other $ 500 million in Coalition Support Funds to Pakistan, bringing the whole assist loss to Islamabad to $ 800 million.
The management's "South Asia Strategy" as enunciated through President Trump comes to bringing peace to Afghanistan with India's lend a hand, and further growing US strategic partnership with India. Pakistan, which has lengthy situated itself as an equal to India with claims of longer and nearer ties to Washington, has both resented and resisted this. Trump's reaction has been to play hardball as an alternative of pandering - as previous management did - to Islamabad's bluster.
Trump himself set the tone with a new year's tweet announcing the United States "has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"
The State Department, which for lengthy treated Islamabad with kid gloves and made emollient gestures each time Pakistan threw a tantrum, is now bending to the President's will, as is the Pentagon, which has had an extended institutional dating with Pakistan going again to the Cold War.
In fact, the present management has redefined the aid philosophy to Pakistan, denying it even the so-called Coalition Support Funds (CSF), which Islamabad has lengthy argued is money that are supposed to be reimbursed to it for its logistical give a boost to to the USA project in Afghanistan.
Amid recrimination that Pakistan is fudging accounts and the USA is penny pinching, Washington is now suggesting Pakistan has to pay for its personal folly of fostering terrorism in the region that has taken the lives of Afghans, Indians, and Americans.
By announcing that assist would be "reprogrammed", the management has left open the possibility that it might be reconstituted if Pakistan fell consistent with U.S goals, whilst signaling it's in a position with even harsher steps if Islamabad remained defiant. Among them is slicing off the global monetary help spigot, together with Pakistan's common forays for give a boost to at IMF and the World Bank, the place Washington wields really extensive influence.
In the previous Pakistan often attempted to bluff its manner out of bother and commitments to the U.S.by positioning itself as an indispensable gateway to landlocked Afghanistan and unsubtly threatening that it will best friend itself fully with China. But even as the Trump management shrugged off the danger, Beijing, which has its personal problems with Washington, has didn't deliver Pakistan from economic troubles. The Trump management has also constructed at the previous management's downsizing of logistical dependence on Pakistan whilst bluntly indicating it may inflict critical economic pain at the country.
Ties between the 2 countries are now so fraught that they may no longer even agree on what transpired in a telephone name between Pompeo and Pakistan's new Prime Minister Imran Khan final month (Trump did not deign to speak with him).
The State Department stated Pompeo raised the issue of Pakistan taking decisive motion against all terrorists running in the country; Islamabad stated the issue did not arise at all. The State Department then relayed a transcript of the telephone name to Islamabad, shutting up a rustic that according to President Trump, has lengthy fooled Washington with "lies and deceit".
Pakistan isn't on my own in feeling the Trump burn. Countries from neighboring Canada and Mexico to distant Palestine or even India are feeling the "Trump burn" bobbing up from its America first outlook.
Ahead of the Pompeo visit, the Trump management has indicated that New Delhi isn't an automatic candidate for sanctions waiver with admire to its army purchases from Russia, and some exhausting bargaining is at the playing cards on that and different business problems.
US scraps $300m aid as Pak fails to toe its line in South Asia
![US scraps $300m aid as Pak fails to toe its line in South Asia]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
September 03, 2018
Rating:
