Pakistan needs to come to terms with coming challenges
While Pakistan’s establishment had yet to take into consideration the challenges posed by Brexit and the fall-out of the Gulf countries’ economic woes, Donald Trump’s victory has added yet another complexity to the situation. The three developments coming after one another have major strategic and economic implications for Pakistan.
The graph of Pak-US relations is on a continuous downturn since May 2011. The relationship touched nadir in 2016 when the US administration refused to deliver F-16s without payment from Islamabad’s own funds, tightened curbs on military funding, urged Pakistan to take action against terror sanctuaries and push harder against terrorist networks that affected ties with India and Afghanistan. On Saturday the State Department reiterated that while it preferred to remain engaged with Pakistan it would continue to press it to take more energetic action against these networks. Meanwhile reports in the US media suggest that the incoming Trump administration is considering proposals to back a congressional move to declare Pakistan a terrorist state. The least one can realistically expect is that Trump would take a stiffer stand on the issue of terror.
Trump has promised to deport a large number of immigrants. Meanwhile anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise after Brexit all over Europe. Figures provided by FIA indicate that nearly 250,000 Pakistanis were deported from various countries during the last three years. These include 131,643 from Saudi Arabia and 32,458 from UAE alone. With figures of economic growth lagging far behind those of population growth, unemployment is bound to be on the rise.. With immigration becoming increasingly difficult the hordes of the unemployed would readily respond to protest calls from soapbox orators.
Economic growth requires internal security and peace with neighbors. For this terrorist networks need to be taken out without cherry picking. To prosper Pakistan needs to be at peace with neighbors as well as with the world at large. This is the only way to deal with challenges from Trump Presidency, the rising hostility to immigrants and the flood of the returning expatriate workers.