Madiha Afzal
The four years of the Biden presidency have been a relative low point for U.S.-Pakistan relations, driven not by any real break in relations, but by a seeming lack of interest from the White House. Biden leaves office as the only U.S. president never to have called his Pakistani counterpart, although he did send Pakistan’s prime minister a short letter after the country’s fraught 2024 election. More than anything, this low-level equilibrium for bilateral relations reflects Pakistan’s reduced importance to the United States after the end of the war in Afghanistan. That will continue into the next administration.
The war in Afghanistan had formed the basis of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship since 2001, just as the previous war did in the 1980s. While Pakistan’s support for the Taliban ultimately led to growing distrust, especially during the Obama years, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan nevertheless necessitated a dependence on Pakistan, especially on its military, for counterterrorism needs and, later, for negotiations with the Taliban. That largely ended with the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021.
As vice president-elect in 2009, Biden told Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai, “Mr. President, Pakistan is fifty times more important than Afghanistan for the United States.” But Biden seemed eager to put both countries in the rearview mirror, and the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan seems to have amplified this desire.