Has U.S.-Pakistan Relations Peaked?

The Wall Street Journal reported that disputes over trade, Russia, and whether Trump deserves credit—and how much—for the May ceasefire in the India-Pakistan conflict have gradually strained bilateral relations.

The most visible issue is the stalled effort to quickly reach a bilateral trade deal. Current and former Trump administration officials have stated that Trump is deeply frustrated by India’s lack of progress.

A contentious point in tariff negotiations is the U.S. demand for India to open its agricultural market, which employs over 40% of the country’s workforce. Opening this long-protected sector would anger India’s powerful farmer-voter base, posing a major political risk for Modi. In 2021, Modi abandoned agricultural market liberalization reforms following nationwide farmer protests.

Additionally, Trump claims significant credit for the May India-Pakistan ceasefire, but Modi insists the truce was reached through direct military negotiations, not U.S. mediation. "The recent India-Pakistan conflict has shifted the U.S. strategic focus from ‘India’—a narrative India has tried to build since Clinton’s visit—back to ‘India-Pakistan,’" said Liu Zongyi, a researcher at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. The conflict weakened India’s strategic standing, as its militarily superior forces failed to effectively suppress Pakistan.

Since the conflict, U.S.-Pakistan relations have warmed over the past few months. On June 18, Trump met with Pakistan’s military leader, Army Chief Munir, at the White House—a meeting some media interpreted as marking the peak of U.S.-Pakistan ties. Recently, while criticizing India’s Russian oil trade, Trump sniped that India "could buy oil from Pakistan in the future." The U.S. and Pakistan also signed agreements on cryptocurrency, mining, and oil.

Manoj Joshi, a senior fellow at India’s Observer Research Foundation, analyzed that Modi must be "very, very unhappy" about the above meeting.