US President Donald Trump began his new year by successfully managing to send twitter into a tizzy, after coming up with this:
The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2018
As seen above, Donald Trump has come out to claim that the US has been stupid in doling out about $33 Billion to Pakistan in form of foreign aid. He later alleged that Pakistan in return has given back lies, deceit and a safe haven to terrorists. By ending his tweet with “No More”, he possibly signalled a curtailment of Pakistan’s privileges in the future.
Apart from possibly tightening the noose around Pakistan, Donald Trump might have alsp successfully achieved a possibly hidden objective of, proving Rahul Gandhi wrong.
Trump wasn’t always this miffed at Pakistan and in October, portrayed that he was getting along pretty well with the country:
Starting to develop a much better relationship with Pakistan and its leaders. I want to thank them for their cooperation on many fronts.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2017
As a result of this, then Congress vice-President Rahul Gandhi decided to take a dig at both PM Modi and Trump:
Modi ji quick; looks like President Trump needs another hug pic.twitter.com/B4001yw5rg
— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) October 15, 2017
This dig was in reference to PM Modi and President Trump’s visible affection towards each other, during the former’s visit to America.
Now that Trump has strongly come out against Pakistan, some might remark in jest that Rahul Gandhi has been proven wrong by Trump, when it comes to his outlook of Trump’s Pakistan policy. One twitter user did just that:
#RahulGandhi @OfficeOfRG
desperately needs a “hug” now after US President Donald Trump New Year tweet berating Pakistan double game!! pic.twitter.com/uTb4yFIfBu— Rosy (@rose_k01) January 1, 2018
Though it remains to be seen whether PM Modi had anything to do with this, anti-Pakistan ’tilt’ of Trump.
While Trump appears to be very angry on Pakistan today, going by his social media track record, it might happen that few weeks down the line, he starts singing Pakistan’s praises again. Possibly as a result of this, many were sceptical of Trump’s words:
This is a familiar script, read out many times over many years, but the movie that followed was almost always from an earlier script (“We’ll lose leverage if we don’t pay”…”This time we’ll make them behave”…”If we don’t, China will”). Will the movie be different this time?? https://t.co/Ph7fo6mkjH
— Baijayant Jay Panda (@PandaJay) January 1, 2018
Too late. https://t.co/PvriL1g42B
— iMac_too (@iMac_too) January 1, 2018
Yawn!!! Walk the Talk else meagre words don’t mean much. https://t.co/NyYrm0HyYf
— Yogini (@yoginisd) January 1, 2018
Like people have questioned above, it remains to be seen whether these tall words translate into some form of a tangible action, like severely restricting (if not completely stopping), the aid to Pakistan.
But, as seen in the past year, certain actions by the Trump administration, might provide a faint glimmer of hope.
We had reported how, the US had proposed to convert Pakistan’s grant to buy military hardware, into a loan. Later it was also reported that Pakistan was to receive US defence aid only if it managed to show sufficient progress in fighting terrorism.
