Pakistan digs deep for Trump’s favour, flaunts rare earths at White House meet

Pakistan’s art of seducing the US has come to the fore. Last week, Army Chief Asim Munir presented a wooden box purportedly containing rare earth minerals in a bid to climb higher in Washington’s good books. The move comes as Donald Trump seeks to curb China’s dominance over the critical minerals supply chain.

The White House has released a picture of Donald Trump staring at what it described as rare earth minerals, fixated on Munir’s presentation displayed in a neatly arranged wooden box, as Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif looked on with a smile.

The photo came after a closed-door meeting at the Oval Office and weeks after a US metals company signed a $500 million investment deal with Pakistan.

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Frontier Works Organisation, a military engineering body under the Army establishment, signed a memorandum of understanding with Missouri-based US Strategic Metals to establish a poly-metallic refinery in the country.

In August, Islamabad unveiled what Munir called its “treasure” to the US and reached a trade agreement that Pakistan hoped would attract American investment in its mineral and oil reserves.

“Pakistan has a rare earth treasure; with this treasure, Pakistan’s debt will also be reduced, and Pakistan will soon be counted among the most prosperous societies,” Munir was quoted as telling Pakistani media outlet Geo Group’s senior editor Suhail Warraich.

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