There are many reasons Pakistan managed to snag the spot as mediator: It has close ties with Iran and China — which helped it be seen as a neutral party. And Gulf countries that might have stepped in to mediate were themselves under attack.
But Pakistan’s courtship of President Donald Trump since he took office a little over a year ago has also played an important role. It’s been a wide-ranging campaign, and one that has shown a canny understanding of Trump’s ego.
“Pakistan wouldn’t be convening these talks if it didn’t have that strong relationship with Washington and that personal trust between its leaders and President Trump,” said Elizabeth Threlkeld, a former foreign service officer in Islamabad, now director of the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank.
That trust is a recent development for Islamabad. Not long ago, Pakistan was “in the penalty box” with the U.S., according to a retired State Department official who worked under both Republicans and Democrats, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive dynamics. Trump withheld military aid to Pakistan in his first term, saying it wasn’t doing enough to fight terrorism. President Joe Biden prioritized India, Islamabad’s decadeslong rival and fellow nuclear power.
But Pakistan has made a slew of moves to woo this White House via Trump’s passion projects.
That has run the gamut from capturing a wanted Islamic State attacker to nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize and securing a trade deal. Pakistan also was quick to join Trump’s Board of Peace. And Pakistan’s cryptocurrency regulator signed an agreement with a business linked to the Trump family’s cryptocurrency firm.
Pakistan is not the only country making such moves, but it is one of the few that has done so much since the early days of the second Trump administration.
Threlkeld argued the everything-all-at-once approach paid off.
“I don’t think it was any single strategy,” she said, but instead a “long list of ways that Pakistan has managed to read the room of this administration.”
The difference can be seen in the way the Trump administration now talks about Pakistan.
Hours after talks between Vice President JD Vance and Iranian leadership in Islamabad ended without a deal, Trump thanked Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a Truth Social post, writing “They are very extraordinary men.”
On his way out of Islamabad, Vance said Munir and Sharif were “incredible hosts” and added, “Whatever shortcomings in the negotiation, it wasn’t because of the Pakistanis.”
Sharif has fielded calls from power players in the days since the talks, thanking the leaders of Japan, Italy and Canada on Monday for their support for Pakistan’s efforts to settle the U.S.-Iran conflict. And Trump said Tuesday that talks could resume in Pakistan this week.
The Pakistani Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
First mover
Two months into Trump’s second term, in March 2025, Pakistan helped arrest a suspect tied to a 2021 bombing in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. troops, garnering praise from Trump in his speech to a joint session of Congress last year.
The arrest of Mohammad Sharifullah put Pakistan in direct contact with Trump’s security brass, while giving the president an early win he could point to in Afghanistan, said Pakistani journalist Owais Tohid, who is in touch with Pakistani government officials.
“He was the most wanted guy, and Trump was taking on the Biden administration for what he called the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan,” Tohid said. “When he came back into power Pakistan gave him what he wanted.”
“Pakistan has been an important partner countering ISIS-K since the start of this administration,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.
The Trump peacemaker play
Not long after, a terrorist attack in India sparked a military crisis with Pakistan as the two countries fired missiles and drones at each other in the most pitched fighting in decades. The conflict quickly became an opportunity for Islamabad.
Sharif thanked Trump for “facilitating” the ceasefire that wound down the spat. The government cited Trump’s “decisive diplomatic intervention” in nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize in June.
“It was Pakistan‘s sincere appreciation for the White House de-escalation efforts in May, and Pakistan‘s nomination of Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize that helped Pakistan turn a corner with its reputation in Washington,” said the retired State Department official.
Trump counts the India-Pakistan ceasefire as one of eight conflicts he claims to have resolved. That’s even though India said the U.S. did not negotiate the truce and that it will never accept mediation by the U.S.
In his social media post Monday, Trump once again mentioned the ceasefire with India, writing that Munir and Sharif “continuously thank me for saving 30 to 50 million lives in what would have been a horrendous War with India. I always appreciate hearing that.”
Kelly, the White House spokesperson, said the peace prize nomination was the reason Trump hosted Pakistan’s Munir in Washington in June 2025.
Pakistan seized another opportunity to boost Trump’s sense of himself as a conflict solver when it joined his new global body, the Board of Peace, in January. Although the Pakistani public was skeptical, a spokesperson for the prime minister spun it as a chance to help Palestinians via a close relationship with the White House.
“We will use the opportunity created by President Trump to ensure that the Pakistani people’s seven-decades-long commitment to the Palestinian cause is articulated and argued for,” Mosharraf Zaidi, a spokesperson for the prime minister, told The Christian Science Monitor at the time.
‘Favorite field marshal’
Pakistan has also dispatched top officials in its effort. Munir, the army chief, whom Trump calls his “favorite field marshal,” played a key role in cementing the tight relationship between Washington and Islamabad.
Trump noticed him during the India-Pakistan standoff, according to Tohid, the journalist.
“He emerges as the victorious general from the conflict and a man with strong nerves,” Tohid said. “Hence the contact between Munir and the White House got established.”
When Trump hosted Munir at the White House on June 18, it was in the middle of the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Tohid said Munir impressed him with his knowledge of Iran.
Munir’s next U.S. visit in August was to attend the retirement ceremony of outgoing CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Kurilla, where the Pakistani army chief “extended his best wishes” to successor Brad Cooper.
When Munir returned to Washington in September, he brought with him Sharif, as well as a box of critical minerals. This is a top Trump priority, laid out in a 2025 executive order.
On April 5, the day before Trump threatened to obliterate Iran, Munir was in contact with Vance, according to a person familiar with their communication and granted anonymity to discuss it. They were discussing a Pakistani proposal for a 45-day ceasefire plan Pakistan was preparing to circulate, the person said.
The Financial Times reported that Munir also made “a flurry of calls” to U.S. leaders ahead of Trump’s deadline last week to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” if Tehran didn’t reopen the waterway.
Crypto collaboration
In January, Pakistan said it signed an agreement with a firm connected to World Liberty Financial, the crypto business affiliated with Trump’s family, to “explore innovation in digital finance, particularly the use of stablecoins for cross-border transactions.”
Zachary Witkoff, son of special envoy Steve Witkoff, is a co-founder of World Liberty Financial and signed the deal with Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb while Sharif and Munir stood behind them, according to pictures posted on X by Pakistan’s cryptocurrency oversight body, the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.
That deal came after about a year of talks between people with ties to Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Pakistani officials, according to the Pakistan government. One of those people was Texas investor Gentry Beach, a former close friend of Donald Trump Jr. Beach traveled to Pakistan in January 2025 with a group of investors and held a series of meetings with Sharif and top-level officials.
A person close to Trump Jr., granted anonymity to discuss their relationship, said Trump Jr. has not spoken to Beach in years and that Trump Jr.’s lawyer sent Beach a cease-and-desist letter for multiple instances of Beach invoking Trump Jr.’s name in business dealings.
“Don has nothing to do with Gentry,” a Trump Jr. spokesperson said. Beach did not respond to a request for comment.
Pakistan launched a crypto council in March and signed a letter of intent a month later with World Liberty Financial to accelerate the use of digital assets.
Pakistan is hardly the only country to engage with World Liberty Financial. An Emirati royal backed a $500 million investment into the company, sparking demands by Democrats to rein in the Trump family’s crypto dealings. Debt-ridden Pakistan is not in a position to make similar giant investments, but its population — the world’s fifth largest — gives it a lucrative potential market.
World Liberty says Pakistan needs digital assets for international payments.
“In 2025, World Liberty Financial’s sister company reached an agreement with the Government of Pakistan to explore responsibly integrating compliant, dollar-backed stablecoins. This is particularly important since Pakistan has approximately 40 million crypto users and international remittances critical to their economy are often painfully expensive due to reliance on outdated technology,” said David Wachsman, spokesperson for World Liberty Financial.
“The implication that this agreement was a conduit for foreign influence-peddling is outrageous, false, and defamatory,” Wachsman said.
The White House denies that there is any relationship between Pakistan’s business dealings with the Trump and Witkoff families and official foreign policy.
“President Trump’s assets are managed in a trust managed by his children, and all of his actions are guided by what is best for the American people — POLITICO’s insinuations of otherwise are a false, sloppy innuendo.” White House spokesperson Kelly said.
Tariff deal and critical minerals pacts
Pakistan was facing a 29 percent tariff when it reached a deal in late July to slice the duty and spur U.S. investment in Pakistan’s oil and mineral reserves.
The deal was celebrated in Islamabad by Aurangzeb, the finance minister, who said it marked “the beginning of a new era of economic collaboration especially in energy, mines and minerals, IT, cryptocurrency and other sectors.”
At the time, the deal gave Pakistan a lower tariff rate than India, whose relations with Trump had soured over sky-high tariffs and its purchase of Russian oil.
That agreement appears to have opened the door for new investments. In September, Pakistan announced a $500 million deal for critical minerals refining with the Missouri-based U.S. Strategic Metals.
When the State Department convened a Critical Minerals Ministerial in February, Pakistan attended.
A ceasefire, if you can keep it
While Pakistan has raised its profile, it has some hurdles ahead if it wants to keep its new position as an international negotiator.
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery said that Pakistan might not have the leverage to force a longer resolution in the same way that Trump did with Israel, which depends on the U.S. for $3.8 billion in annual military assistance.
“Israel had to listen to the United States. The major power, the powerful actor, had to listen to the negotiator,” he said. “We don’t need to listen to Pakistan like Israel needed to listen to us.”
But Pakistan has another card to play, argued Hamidreza Azizi, an Iran expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. At the same time Islamabad has courted the U.S., it has been buying most of its weapons from China. Over the weekend, Pakistan sent fighter jets to Saudi Arabia as part of a new defense deal with Riyadh.
“This is no longer just a Pakistani issue. It’s a regional thing,” Azizi said. “They have the right connections to the right actors who can play a role here in solving this issue.”
One Arab diplomat granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter mused to POLITICO that perhaps Pakistan didn’t expect talks to fall apart so fast — but handled the moment with grace.
“The way the U.S. treated Pakistan, thanking them, seeing them as credible mediators, might position them in the future as the most credible mediator between Iran and the U.S. if this keeps on going,” the diplomat said.
