Is Pakistan playing both China and US? Asim Munir pitches Trump a $1.2 billion Arabian Sea port to counter Gwadar

US President Donald Trump during a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir at the White House, in Washington, DC.

Pakistan is once again making desperate attempts to reinvent its strategic importance by dangling new promises before Washington. According to a Financial Times report, Pakistani Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, through his advisers, has approached the Trump administration with a pitch to develop the fishing town of Pasni into a deep-water port. The project, valued at up to $1.2 billion, is framed as a gateway for American access to Pakistan’s so-called critical minerals sector.

Pasni lies only 70 miles from Gwadar, the China-backed port long seen by Washington as a possible dual-use facility for Beijing, and barely 100 miles from the Iranian border. The blueprint, obtained by the Financial Times, portrays Pasni as a counterbalance to Gwadar and a hedge for Pakistan’s faltering diplomacy. “Pasni’s proximity to Iran and Central Asia enhances US options for trade and security. Engagement at Pasni would counterbalance Gwadar and expand US influence in the Arabian Sea and Central Asia,” the document reads.

The initiative, however, is not official Pakistani policy, and senior Trump administration officials deny that the idea was discussed during Munir’s recent White House meeting. Still, the FT reported that Munir’s advisers shared the proposal ahead of his encounter with Donald Trump, at a time when Islamabad is desperate to keep the US engaged.

Pakistani officials are openly exploring schemes to exploit what they call a shifting geopolitical order. These include backing a Trump-linked cryptocurrency venture, offering cooperation against Afghanistan-based militants, and even endorsing Trump’s Gaza plan. After claiming credit for brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan earlier this year, Trump has been showered with effusive praise from Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who went as far as nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize. In return, Trump publicly lauded the Pakistani military and accepted a display case of mineral samples at the White House.

Despite Pakistan’s insistence that the Pasni project excludes “direct basing,” it is clear that Islamabad hopes to lure American investment as a counterweight to Chinese influence. One adviser told the FT, “I’ve been telling our leaders we need to diversify from China. We don’t need to consult the Chinese as it’s outside the Gwadar concession.” The remark underscores Pakistan’s opportunistic attempt to play both sides while remaining deeply indebted to Beijing.

Washington’s concerns over Gwadar are long-standing. US officials fear it could evolve into a Chinese naval facility, though both Islamabad and Beijing deny this. Pakistan’s strategy of promising Pasni as a “non-military” option appears designed to reassure Washington without angering its primary patron. Yet, as history has shown, Pakistan’s assurances are often selective and self-serving.

The country’s mineral sector currently contributes only about 3 percent to GDP, hampered by insurgencies in resource-rich provinces. Still, officials paint Pasni as a panacea. Hussain Abidi, chair of the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, told the FT, “This is a reset with America through economic ties rather than just the traditional security ties.” That optimism ignores the reality of Pakistan’s chronic instability, lack of infrastructure, and repeated failures to deliver on past promises to foreign investors.

Signs of US interest are tentative. Missouri-based US Strategic Metals (USSM) recently signed an MoU with Pakistan’s military engineering arm and acknowledged hearing “talk of a possible port project near Pasni.” Mike Hollomon, USSM’s commercial director, said, “In our conversations with the field marshal, he stressed that Pakistan has been an ally of the U.S. for a long time and minerals is a way to rekindle a dormant friendship.”

Pakistan shipped a token consignment of less than two tonnes of copper, antimony, and neodymium to the company last month, hardly enough to alter the fundamentals of its broken economy. Antimony prices have soared since China banned exports to the US, but Pakistan’s ability to capitalise remains doubtful.

The Pasni plan reflects Pakistan’s pattern of overpromising and underdelivering. After decades of backing terrorists, straining ties with the West, and becoming dependent on Chinese loans, Islamabad is now offering yet another “reset.” But as with past resets, this latest pitch looks less like strategy and more like desperation.