In Washington, influence is not always measured by the speech that is delivered, the rally that is staged or the slogan that briefly trends online. More often, it is measured by what quietly does not happen: the hostile amendment that never reaches the floor, the pressure campaign that fails to acquire legislative weight, the punitive language that dies before it can become policy.
That is why the defeat of Amendment #961 to H.R. 8800, the FY2027 National Defence Authorization Act, makes for quite an interesting read.
The amendment, offered by Rep Jim McGovern, sought to restrict certain security assistance to Pakistan unless the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, certified that Pakistan had taken measures to prevent human-rights violations. The House Rules Committee rejected McGovern’s motion to make the amendment in order by 4-7, preventing it from reaching the House floor. The vote was revealing: Democratic members backed the motion, while the Republican majority voted it down.
To the discomfort of those still invested in Pakistan’s diplomatic isolation, the reset with Washington is beginning to produce protection where it really counts.
The amendment targeted a sensitive channel: the International Military Education and Training programme, or IMET. This is not a large aid pipeline. Its value lies in access, familiarity and continuity. IMET brings foreign officers into American military institutions and builds networks between security establishments. When the Trump administration previously restored Pakistan’s participation in IMET, US officials described it as an exception serving “vital US national security interests.” They also said the programme offered a way to increase bilateral cooperation and advance regional security and stability.
The latest development, therefore, shows that the current American power structure is not eager to downgrade its relationship with Pakistan over domestic political battles that Washington neither controls nor wishes to own. More importantly, it shows that the Trump-era reset with Pakistan is not cosmetic. To the discomfort of those still invested in Pakistan’s diplomatic isolation, it is beginning to produce protection where it counts: in committee rooms and inside the machinery where Washington’s real decisions are made.
President Donald Trump deserves credit for this recalibration. Since the start of his second term, Trump has not been especially invested in the old Washington script that treated India as the only serious South Asian partner and Pakistan as a problem to be managed. He responds to leverage, strategic usefulness and deals. Pakistan, under the present diplomatic configuration, has managed to present itself not as a supplicant, but as a state with assets Washington needs: counterterrorism access, Iran channels, Gulf linkages and a nuclear-armed position at the intersection of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East.
The Iran channel is perhaps the clearest illustration of that shift. Pakistan’s renewed relevance in Washington has not rested only on nostalgia for an old alliance or on counterterrorism cooperation. It has also rested on Islamabad’s ability to speak to capitals that Washington cannot easily reach on its own. As the US-Iran crisis deepened, Pakistan quietly moved from the margins to the table. Reuters reported in March that Pakistan’s possible role as host of talks to end the Iran war built on both its courtship of Trump and its long-standing ties with Tehran, adding that such a role could raise Pakistan’s global prominence to a level not seen since Islamabad helped facilitate the diplomatic opening that led to Richard Nixon’s visit to China.
That was not idle speculation. By April, regional leaders were publicly either supporting Pakistan’s role or acknowledging close coordination with Islamabad on a framework for lasting peace between the United States and Iran to prevent escalation and stabilise energy markets, supply chains and food security.
The latest endorsement came from Ankara. Standing with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Istanbul, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Israel must not be allowed to undermine a US-Iran peace deal mediated by Pakistan. This is the kind of usefulness Trump understands. Pakistan was not offering Washington moral lectures or sentimental appeals. It was offering access, geography, discretion and crisis diplomacy.
The Iran track was only one part of the wider reset. The evidence had been accumulating for months. Trump hosted Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, at the White House in June 2025–the first time a US president had hosted Pakistan’s army chief alone.
That meeting was not symbolism for its own sake. During the Munir-Trump engagement, the two discussed trade, economic development, cryptocurrency and tensions involving Israel and Iran.
Then came the economic track. In April 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar discussed tariffs, trade, immigration and critical minerals. The State Department said the two discussed how to make progress toward a “fair and balanced trade relationship,” while Rubio raised prospects for critical-minerals engagement and expanded commercial opportunities for US companies. According to reports, Pakistani advisers had even approached US officials with a proposal for American investors to build and operate a terminal on the Arabian Sea to access Pakistan’s critical minerals.
The tariff numbers told their own story. Pakistan had faced a potential 29 per cent tariff under Trump’s reciprocal tariff regime, but the White House’s July 2025 tariff order listed Pakistan at 19 per cent. For a country frequently written off in Washington commentary as diplomatically isolated or economically irrelevant, this was not a small achievement. The warmth continued when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Trump at the White House. Sharif invited American companies to invest in Pakistan’s agriculture, technology, mining and energy sectors. His office said he was confident that, under President Trump’s leadership, the Pakistan-US partnership would be further strengthened to the mutual benefit of both countries.
All in all, what is unfolding bears little resemblance to the old aid-dependent relationship. It is a new bargain built around access, resources, security, investment and political utility. The security dimension is equally important. On July 2, the US State Department said Washington “supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks” amid renewed tensions with Afghanistan. That line mattered. It recognised Pakistan not as a nuisance in the region, but as a state confronting a cross-border terrorist threat.
An even more revealing counterterrorism signal had come earlier. In March 2025, Trump announced the arrest of Mohammad Sharifullah, an ISIS-K operative charged in connection with the Abbey Gate bombing that killed 13 American troops during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. “I want to thank, especially, the government of Pakistan for helping arrest this monster,” Trump said.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s overseas supporters had hoped to push Washington in the opposite direction. Since Imran Khan’s ouster, PTI supporters in the United States have staged rallies outside the White House, lobbied lawmakers and tried to convert diaspora anger into congressional pressure. In May 2023, they gathered outside the White House in support of Khan, who had complained in a CNN interview that there was “no rule of law” in Pakistan.
By September 2023, however, their messaging had become harder to sell in Washington. PTI’s US focal person publicly blamed the Biden administration for “regime change” in Pakistan and demanded a congressional hearing into the Donald Lu episode. US officials had repeatedly rejected that allegation as “baseless and false.” This contradiction has haunted PTI’s Washington strategy: the party’s diaspora wanted Congress to intervene on democracy and rights while parts of its own messaging accused Washington of helping create the crisis.
None of this means Pakistan can ignore congressional scrutiny. The Pakistan Democracy Act, introduced separately in March 2025, remains a reminder that some lawmakers will continue to push sanctions language over alleged political persecution and military influence.
Still, what cannot be ignored is that, despite rallies, advocacy drives and engagement with sympathetic lawmakers, Pakistan’s state diplomacy prevailed where it mattered. Islamabad chose quiet lobbying over street presence, strategic access over spectacle and policy engagement over protest theatre. The result is now visible: Pakistan is back in the room, back in the conversation and, for now, back in Washington’s good graces.
The writer is OpEd Editor (Daily Times) and can be reached at durenayab786 @gmail.com. She tweets @DureAkram.