Impact of the US-China Geostrategic Competition on Pakistan’s Foreign Policy in the Second Trump Administration

Abstract

Pakistan’s foreign policy is heavily impacted by the geostrategic rivalry between the United States of America (US) and People’s Republic of China (PRC). The frequent change in US administration means that Islamabad must recalibrate its approach to this great power competition following each transition in the White House.  This article analyzes Pakistan’s foreign policy choices during the second administration of Donald Trump (2025-2029).  The danger that Pakistan faces is that it will be misled by statements by the president and some of his supporters and cabinet officers that the US will turn away from President Joe Biden’s liberal internationalism in favor of a return to the isolationism that characterized the earlier America First movement in the 1930s.  In such a scenario, the US would withdraw from entanglements in Asia and leave South Asia, including Pakistan, within a Chinese sphere of influence. While it is true that Trump eschews foreign interventions based on the policy of protecting liberal principles such as democracy and human rights around the world, he is a realist committed to maintaining America’s global hegemony, including its continuing dominance in the Indo-Pacific. Because China represents a growing challenge to the status quo, the foreign policy of the Trump administration will be China-centric and largely based on military deterrence. The international structure will remain unipolar, with a still-dominant US threatened by a rising China. It is in Pakistan’s national interest, therefore, to balance its close relationship with China with ongoing economic, diplomatic, and military engagement with the United States, one of its most enduring strategic partners.