Trump’s salvo indicates upcoming harder line: US expert

ISLAMABAD: In his shocking first tweet of the New Year, President Trump has hinted at US administration’s hard line against Pakistan in near future but experts have warned that it would be too early to call it a policy announcement on complete aid cutoff. “I would urge caution — we shouldn't assume this tweet is announcing an aid cutoff. We're dealing with a very unpredictable president known to issue statements and tweets that are later contradicted,” said Michal Kugelman, Senior South Asia Associate at the US think tank TheWilson Center.

However, the president’s tweet early Monday morning does indicate “upcoming harder line”, he added. “What's most striking to me about the tweet is its timing — his very first tweet of 2018. It suggests to me that Pakistan, which typically doesn't consume much of his policy attention, is very much on his mind. This may mean he's previewing a new aid cutoff policy, or maybe he just happened to recently read an article on Pakistan that's lingered in his mind,” Kugelman added.

He was referring to a New York Times story published last week which claimed that the Trump administration was strongly considering whether to withhold $255 million in aid that it had delayed sending to Islamabad in August 2017. This amount known as Foreign Military Financing was withheld pending "Pakistani action against internal terror networks."

The same story also mentioned that the United States had provided Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid since 2002, a line that echoed in Trump latest tweet. “The US government has after all been strongly considering indefinite aid suspensions for quite some time,” Kugelman, who is an expert on US policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, added.

In the past, he had also predicted an expansion of US drone strikes inside Pakistan’s settled areas or withdrawal of Pakistan’s status as a major non-Nato ally in case “Islamabad does not meet US demands of action against Haqqani network”.

However, Kugelman warned that Pakistan can also block vital US and Nato supply routes in retaliation for any extreme measure by Washington. “I'm sure many in Pakistan would hope the Nato supply routes would be shut down in the event of an aid cut, but I think such a response would be likelier if the US took harsher measures such as expanding drone strikes, revoking Pakistan's non-Nato status, or similar measures,” he said. Pakistan's response to an aid cut, he said, would likely be rhetorical, though it may well consider some measures that could undercut US interests in the region.