Washington can leverage Islamabad’s hedging strategy to keep it from growing too close to China.

Since 1947, Washington has courted Pakistan with aid packages and coerced it with sanctions. It has designated Pakistan a major non-NATO ally and also threatened to bomb it “back to the Stone Age”—sometimes within the same decade.

Several American administrations have entered office believing they could transform Pakistan into a reliable American ally. Even more have left convinced they had been betrayed, frustrated by China’s growing influence over the world’s only Muslim-majority nuclear power. Washington’s consistent mistake has been believing it was buying Pakistan.

Islamabad is not for sale. It is, however, for rent.

The good news for the United States is that it holds a structural advantage over China in this competition. America rents Pakistan by choice. China rents Pakistan by necessity.

The US-Iran conflict illustrated this dynamic. Trusted by both Tehran and Washington, Islamabad helped broker the cease-fire that briefly reopened the Strait of Hormuz. Traditional treaty allies such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom could not have played that role. A hedging power could.

For Pakistan, hedging between Washington and Beijing, or between Riyadh and Tehran, is not indecision awaiting resolution but foreign policy itself. Rather than viewing Pakistan’s balancing act as evidence of unreliability, Washington should see it as a strategic reality it can exploit.

Consider Pakistan’s hedge beyond the mediation effort. In June 2025, Pakistan and Azerbaijan signed a deal worth up to $4.6 billion under which Islamabad would supply 40 JF-17 fighter jets to Baku. The aircraft is built on a Chinese airframe, powered by a Russian engine and sold by an American ally to a country Washington is actively courting. The transaction monetizes Pakistan’s relationship with China within a Western-facing market. Pakistan’s strategy is to maximize its strategic value to both Washington and Beijing.

More recently, after helping broker talks during the Iran conflict, Islamabad reportedly asked Washington to establish a $10 billion exchange-stabilization facility to strengthen its foreign-exchange reserves. Pakistan was again converting geopolitical relevance into economic support without abandoning its relationship with China.

Washington, however, has leverage. Beijing cannot walk away from Pakistan without weakening its Eurasian strategy. America can engage only when its interests require it. 

The reason lies in geography. Under Xi Jinping, China has sought to reduce its dependence on vulnerable maritime routes through the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca. The Belt and Road Initiative reflects that broader ambition by building overland pipelines, railways and trade corridors that cannot easily be disrupted by naval power.

China has many partners. It has very few Pakistans. Pakistan’s geography places it at the intersection of China’s continental and maritime strategies, linking western China to the Arabian Sea. It is also Beijing’s largest defense export market, forcing India to divide its military attention. Those strategic advantages are difficult to replicate elsewhere.

The United States is different. It needs Pakistan only episodically—for Iran diplomacy, the Board of Peace, or even Nobel Peace Prize nominations. America can afford to think transactionally because its interests are narrower.

Washington has undervalued Pakistan’s hedge when, in fact, it is the cheapest strategic asset it can pay for. It should use a handful of levers to tilt it toward America’s interests.

Pakistan’s longstanding reliance on international financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank is one area where American influence remains decisive. Beijing, with its higher-interest bilateral loans and reluctance to finance the Pakistani state itself, cannot readily substitute for that role. 

The United States can also expand professional military education, officer exchanges, joint exercises, and counterterrorism cooperation to mitigate China’s growing influence over Pakistan’s defense establishment.

Pakistan’s largest export market is the United States. Trade preferences and market access encourage better behavior more effectively than aid ever could.

Pakistan’s leadership places a premium on international prestige, which bolsters its domestic legitimacy. White House visits, Pentagon invitations, and State Department strategic dialogues cost Washington little but can yield outsized diplomatic returns.

By contrast, demanding that Pakistan abandon the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is a nonstarter. An astute hedger will never accept a demand that forces it to choose sides. 

Washington should judge Pakistan not by whether it reduces ties with China, but by whether it prevents China from monopolizing those ties.

If Washington is generous with prestige, pragmatic on conditionality, and focused on military and economic cooperation, it can turn Pakistan’s hedging strategy into an American advantage.

Critics will argue that deeper US-Pakistan engagement would unsettle India. Yet the alternative is worse. An exclusively Chinese Pakistan is worse for India than one that retains meaningful military, economic and diplomatic ties with the United States.

If Pakistan’s leaders believed they had diversified external partnerships rather than relying on China, and had greater economic opportunities through trade and investment, as well as international recognition and prestige, they might feel less need to define Pakistan primarily in terms of confrontation with India.

Terrorism should become too costly—not because America threatens punishment, but because it would destroy opportunities Pakistan itself values. The goal is to create so much to lose that terrorism spoils it all.

America’s mistake was never engaging Pakistan. Recent cooperation over Iran demonstrates the dividends of this approach. The mistake was believing that Pakistan could be bought. Rent is cheaper. And it is the only product on the shelf.

About the Authors: Hamza Azhar Salam and Ken Moriyasu

Hamza Azhar Salam is a 2026 journalist-in-residence at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago. He is the co-founder of The Pakistan Daily and Migrant News and has worked as a reporter for Pakistan’s The News International. He has also written for Haaretz. Follow him on X: @HamzaAzhrSalam. 

Ken Moriyasu is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, where he focuses on Greater Asia—the Eurasian landmass stretching from Turkey to Japan. He previously served as foreign correspondent for the Japanese newspaper Nikkei, with postings in Washington, Cairo, Beijing, Dalian, and New York. His work has appeared in The Washington Examiner, Asia Times, and The National Interest.

The post The US Can’t Buy Pakistan. It Can Rent It appeared first on The National Interest.