Ambassador: Pakistan Can Be a ‘Bridge Builder’ in Time of Trade Turmoil

With a plan to play a larger role in the global economy, Pakistan is positioning itself as a “connector country,” deepening ties with its largest neighbor but remaining open and active in trading with the world. 

Just as Mexico integrates deeply with the U.S. yet actively pursues trade with other nations and blocs, so Pakistan will continue working with China even as the U.S. remains its top trading partner. 

“We are a bridge builder,” said Ambassador Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, who visited Atlanta Jan. 31-Feb. 2 to meet with universities and investors while attending a conference of Pakistani-American physicians. 

Pakistan’s collaboration with China on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a massive infrastructure project serving as a showpiece of China’s Belt and Road initiative, has been the subject o skepticism in the U.S.

Mr. Sheikh said Pakistan would not be subject to the “binary portrayals” that would see his country of a quarter-billion people pulled between the two economic superpowers.

“Basically what we need is perhaps for the U.S. private sector, corporate America, to think in terms of using Pakistan” and its tech-savvy youth, “cost-effective” labor pool and millennia of experience as a trading people situated at a vital global crossroads. 

“The same geography which lends us political significance lends us economic significance,” the ambassador said in a briefing with Global Atlanta at Miller & Martin PLLC. “Do your due diligence, but look at Pakistan.” 

At its split from India and independence at midnight on Aug. 14, 1947, Pakistan was born with a “congenital threat perception,” an inbuilt sense of geopolitical uneasiness that has failed to abate nearly eight decades into its journey as a nation. 

It remains at odds with India and shares a long border with Afghanistan, which was rocked for two decades by war with the U.S.  Iran sits to its immediate west. 

U.S. strategic interests in this neighborhood have led to a consistent but sometimes uneasy partnership since then-President Harry Truman sent a letter to Pakistan’s founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, at the dawn of the new nation. 

“We have faced challenging happenings that certainly cast a shadow on our national existence, on our development and evolution as a nation-state, but we are, perhaps, for the same reasons just narrated, one of the most resilient nation-states in the world. We are perhaps the most resilient people on Earth,” Mr. Sheikh said. 

U.S.-Pakistan ties have ebbed and flowed, said the ambassador, with American attention being largely dependent on its own perceived security interests in the region. A newfound focus on the Indo-Pacific has created a paradigm where Pakistan sometimes doesn’t “neatly fit.” 

Some analysts have argued that ties hit a nadir under recently departed U.S. President Biden, who made his first call to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif only just before the end of his term.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has been dealing with a domestic political crisis with the ouster and subsequent imprisonment of former Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Prime Minister Imran Khan. The saga has led Khan’s supporters to stage mass protests against the government and its powerful military, prompting a crackdown that watchdog groups have described as an assault on civil and human rights.

What has remained constant in the bilateral relationship over time, Mr. Sheikh said, is trade, and Pakistan is now “deliberately shifting our foreign policy, thrust and outlook to pivot to geo-economics from geopolitics.”

That means undertaking domestic reforms and boosting financial inclusion while courting international investors in fields like information technology and agriculture, the latter of which has seen interest from Middle Eastern countries interested in using Pakistan as a bread basket. 

“We are very old agrarian people and can still contribute to the world in terms of food security, because that’s part of our genetic code. We have vast land, and we are actually making ourselves relevant in this area as we speak,” Mr. Sheikh said. (For context, Pakistan is about the size of two Californias.)

Pakistan can also contribute substantially to global demand, he said. A massive exporter of textiles, it’s already the largest importer of cotton and is set to open its market soon to U.S. soybeans. 

The same holds for consumer products as well as commodities, Mr. Sheikh said, noting that he is a fan of Coca-Cola (he recommends imbibing with a warm Pakistani samosa). About two-thirds of Pakistan’s population is under 30, and some projections have it passing the U.S. and Indonesia to become the world’s third most populous country by the end of the century.

Global brands have taken note — Nestle is making a new chaunsa mango drink (“a divine taste right out of the heavens”) for export to the U.S., while Procter & Gamble is manufacturing in Pakistan for export to Central Asia. Even Coca-Cola’s arch nemesis is growing in the market, the ambassador said, good-naturedly needling a Coke rep in the audience. 

“Pepsi — and Coca-Cola people should be mindful of that — is expanding footprint in Pakistan and exporting to (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries,” Mr. Sheikh said. 

Adding to its credentials as a bridge, he said, Pakistan enjoys preferential trade treatment with the European Union and a free-trade agreement with China, that could make it a potential shield against the “tariff battles that are likely to follow.” He added that joint ventures are available in Pakistan in a wide range of areas, including critical minerals, and that the country doesn’t see itself as an obvious target for any new Trump tariffs. 

On the services side, Mr. Sheikh said financial technology, where Atlanta is a leader, is a growing field of interest as the country embarks on its Digital Pakistan initiative. MyTM, a financial super-app startup born with support from an Islamabad incubator, beat out 600 other startups at the 2022 GITEX conference in Dubai. It now has 80 million users. 

“There is no country in the world where you would not find a Pakistani banker, even yours truly,” Mr. Sheikh said, hearkening to his roots as a banker. “In the financial sector, Pakistanis have made their mark.”

During the Q&A, a representative from Coca-Cola pressed the ambassador on the need for national treatment of foreign investors in Pakistan and the protection of women’s rights. On a lighter note, it was suggested that Coke Studio Pakistan, a production house that the beverage giant has used to produce viral musical hits in Pakistani languages like Punjabi and Urdu, could come to the U.S.

Such cultural exports, another guest suggested, could be vital to improving Pakistan’s image around the world, which in turn would help the country attract more tourists. 

“We have such a beautiful country that you may not be able to imagine sitting here,” Mr. Sheikh said, noting its more than 100 peaks above 6,000 meters, including six of the top 14 mountains in the world. “I confess that we have been hiding it, but now we intend to remedy that.” 

With both tourism and trade, said the former head of the Special Investment Facilitation Council, seeing is believing. 

“I cannot stop media from portraying what they are portraying. But I can tell you from experience … that only you have to land in Pakistan and you will be converted.” 

Mr. Sheikh became Pakistan’s ambassador last August, succeeding Masood Khan, who also participated in a Global Atlanta briefing in 2023.

See that story below:

Georgia Now on Pakistan’s Map, Ambassador Says 

The Jan. 31 briefing was sponsored by Blackwater Construction.