THE election results in America this week portend a sea change, and they have important ramifications for Pakistan. The Democrats have taken both the House and the Senate in a rout that reached Texas and Kansas. Anger over living costs, tariffs, and the war on Iran all played their part. For the remaining two years of his term, President Donald Trump will face a Congress armed with subpoena power and eager to use it.
This is no distant affair for us. Much of the world has spent two years trying to cope with Trump. Meanwhile, the leadership in Pakistan flamboyantly embraced him, though let’s not underestimate how well that worked. It got us lower tariffs, a White House lunch, and, above all, a central role when the Iran war needed an exit ramp. The question now is what that embrace will cost us as the man on the receiving end of it begins to lose his grip on Washington.
Pakistan has veered too close to Trump, and this might not go down well in the near future. The April ceasefire that we helped broker was a genuine achievement, and I said so at the time. The memorandum that followed in June has since collapsed, but the credit earned in those weeks still stands. Yet all of it could well come to be overshadowed by the single act of having nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize in so conspicuous and overly generous a manner.
Showering the man with extravagant praise in highly public settings might have worked to win him over in the short term. But the praise kept coming long after the point had been made. In September, he was telling the UN General Assembly that our prime minister credits him with saving 30 million lives. Last month, on the day the Nobel went to someone else, the prime minister was on X lauding his “historic role” in South Asia. These things do not expire. There is a risk they get tagged onto Pakistan in the years to come, once Americans settle on their verdict of this presidency.
What looks clever in one season reads very differently at a hearing in the next.
Even more dangerous is the fact that the Trump family’s business dealings might come under congressional investigation. Reuters reported in September that probes could begin as early as February, with Trump-linked crypto firms of particular interest. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who is in line to chair an investigations panel, has promised to use his subpoena power. The same senator was asking questions about World Liberty Financial’s Pakistan deal in May last year.
If any ties lead back here, they could tie the country to the affair; the threads are already in public view. In January, our finance minister signed a memorandum with a World Liberty affiliate concerning its USD1 stablecoin. In September, the defence ministry placed a limited order with Powerus, a drone company in which two of Trump’s sons are investors. No wrongdoing has been established. The White House denies any conflict of interest, and as of July the stablecoin deal had produced no known transactions at all. But I have described that memorandum as an instrument of access, and access is exactly what investigators will want to look into. What looks clever in one season reads very differently at a hearing in the next.
These risks, however, are rooted more in optics and perceptions than in realpolitik. Pakistan’s thrust to find a place in the new regional order emerging in the Middle East must continue unabated. The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, and the Tehran huddle I wrote about last week, which Field Marshal Asim Munir himself proposed, have a logic of their own that does not depend on who chairs which committee in Washington. Whatever the fallout for Pakistan, the changing of the political tide in America will be an American affair first and foremost.
The most likely outcome is that the Trump administration comes to be consumed by its wrangling with the new Congress and loses its moorings in foreign policy. A White House fighting hearings and subpoenas at home will have little bandwidth for the world.
This could produce a hazardous moment. A beleaguered and irrational president might try an adventure abroad to distract from his troubles at home, and the adventure is ready to hand. The blockade of Iran remains in place, reports in September said he saw a fresh bombing campaign as likely after the midterms, and Iran’s Supreme Leader warned on Wednesday that the war’s scope will widen if the attacks are repeated. But that seems unlikely given the stakes. This is the war voters have just punished him for, and on the eve of the vote he himself cast doubt on resuming strikes.
What is more likely is an acceleration in the pace with which America withdraws from its commitments to underwrite global order, particularly its military posture in the Middle East. I argued in April that the price of getting out of this war would be a disorderly exit from the region altogether. A Congress that owes its majority partly to anger over this war will be in no hurry to fund the next one. The Gulf monarchies have seen their American protector fail to shield them from Iranian missiles, and they are drawing their own conclusions. All this will spur the search for a new security architecture among the powers of the region, a search that will definitely include Pakistan.
Three times in our history, in the 1960s, the 1980s and the 2000s, an American embrace brought dollars and a growth spurt, and each time the money stopped when Washington’s interest moved on. This time it has brought more photographs than dollars. Ironically enough, this turning inward of the United States might just be the push Pakistan needs to learn to stand on its own feet.
The writer is a business and economy journalist.
Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2026
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