Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is set to travel from New York to Washington to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, as both sides make a renewed push to reset their bilateral relations. Shehbaz is currently in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session. According to diplomatic sources cited by The Express Tribune, he will briefly travel to Washington for the meeting and then return to New York the same day to continue his UNGA engagements.
This upcoming meeting will mark the first time the U.S. President and the Pakistani Prime Minister have met at the White House since July 2019, when former Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Washington and met President Trump. During President Joe Biden’s tenure, Pakistan was noticeably sidelined; he never held phone conversations with Pakistani prime ministers nor extended invitations to the White House.
Since President Trump took office in January, however, there has been a dramatic and unexpected shift in the Pakistan-U.S. relationship. The Trump-Shehbaz meeting comes amid a noticeable thaw in ties between Islamabad and Washington. In June, Trump held a rare one-on-one meeting with Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir at the White House, signaling a departure from the Biden administration’s frosty approach in favor of Trump’s more transactional but open style of engagement with Pakistan.
Diplomatic observers view the Shehbaz-Trump meeting as a continuation of this reset. A senior Pakistani official familiar with the process told The Express Tribune, “The optics of the army chief’s meeting in June were significant. This meeting institutionalises that opening.”
Officials in Islamabad believe the discussions will focus on a range of issues including bilateral relations, regional and international matters such as Afghanistan, counterterrorism cooperation, and trade opportunities.
Analysts caution, however, that while President Trump appears eager to engage Islamabad, the reset remains tentative.
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