After the faux pas at ufa in July 2015, when Pakistan abdicated the right to talk to India only when Kashmir is part of such agenda, the loss of face at the financial action Task force’s (FATF) recent Paris conference pointed towards the persistent attitude of complacency by Pakistan’s foreign office. china pulled back its support at the eleventh hour and the Saudis sold themselves in exchange for full membership of FATF. Turkey stood by Pakistan till the end—Thanks Turkey!
While the foreign minister was tweeting victory from Moscow, “the Trump’s way”, and finance advisor was dead sure that it won’t happen, professional diplomats of our rivals accomplished the feat. now the same adviser is claiming that being on the grey list won’t impact our economy both need to be ashamed of themselves, but we do not have such national traditions.
The National Security Committee during its meeting on February 27 has once again called for recalibration of the foreign policy framework. There has been a persistent popular demand in Pakistan that we carry out an objective review of our foreign policy. All such efforts have been half-hearted hence effects did not go beyond window dressing. Also, there has not been sufficient international support to accomplish this. Putin postponed his visit to Pakistan twice indicating that Pak-Russia relations have not yet gathered critical mass. The Saudis have not forgotten Pakistan’s behaviour during the Yemen crisis. And China’s policy is absolutely clear, it takes a stand against American wishes only but to a certain level then it buckles under pressure and abandons its allies mid-stream a familiar pattern in case of North Korea. Pakistan cannot take Chinese support for granted and this must be part of our foreign policy calculus. While we may have sold ourselves wholesomely in exchange for CPEC, the Chinese have not committed themselves to support Pakistan wholeheartedly, notwithstanding their supportive statement after the goof up.
The Yanks need continuous tail-twisting to keep their policy on rational railing; left to themselves the Americans keep swaying their policy left, right and Centre and often irrationally. Countries which have learned this reality like Israel keep necessary tools handy to do that. Pakistan is still learning the ropes. However, to counter that over the years America has invested heavily in policy making echelons of Pakistan, our intoxication to easy dollars has exposed the country to a critical one-way dependency on the US. Hence there is a bipartisan approach to take the American pressures lying down. This may work to a certain limit but cannot go on when America decides to stampede our core national interests, and these days it is not only doing so, but is also taking pride in this.
America’s current splurge of arm-twisting tactics have begun to shove elbow in Pakistan’s ribs. Knowing the “Ugly American” mentality well, one could postulate that recent pressure via FATF was just the beginning of the new round of American nastiness.
The FATF had previously warned Pakistan that it could, once again, be put on the watch list it if does not make further efforts to meaningfully crack down on money flow to militants. Earlier also Pakistan had remained on the global terror financing watch list from 2012 to 2015; so, there is nothing new about it. While delisting Pakistan from the terror financing watch list in February 2015, the FATF had noted that Pakistan had made significant progress in improving its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime and also established the legal and regulatory framework to meet its commitments in its action plan regarding the previously indicated shortfalls.
America’s motion in the FATF motion was focused on Hafiz Saeed, indicating that the United States had put forward the motion at India’s behest. “The US has consistently expressed our longstanding concern about ongoing deficiencies in Pakistan’s implementation of its anti-money laundering and counterterrorism finance regime,” said a spokesperson from the US Embassy in Islamabad. The United States was “absolutely not” acting on behalf of India in pressing Pakistan on the issue, the spokesperson said.
A lot more is to come. Pakistan has a wide-ranging experience of such “Americonics”. Soon America dominated multilateral entities like the World Bank, IMF, etc. would start applying economic pressure, and simultaneously dubious American entities would start screaming about Human Rights, religious persecution, minority rights, etc.
The time has come for Pakistan to draw it redlines starting with specifying transit fee on every American truck and aero plane that uses Pakistani territory and air space for connecting to Afghanistan, alongside an escalation factor chart corresponding to each American action. And let brother Modi arrange logistics for Trump’s war machine in Afghanistan via Chabahar port. Sending the Afghan refugees back is another necessity. The Americans should be asked to create conditions for that and also institute effective border management on their side of the Pak-Afghan border.
The US move would add to the cost of doing business as foreign investment could decline, worsening the country’s macroeconomic position which is already under pressure due to a widening trade deficit and falling foreign exchange reserves. Pakistan has rightly called the US move “politically motivated” with an aim to under mine the country’s economic growth. It is part of over all American strategy to contain China and Pakistan is being pressured for joining the CPEC initiative. America thinks that the CPEC would undermine its Asia-Pacific rebalance effort whose sole objective is to keep China entangled in its local conflicts pertaining to the South China Sea and East China Sea. America is encouraging the countries of Asia Pacific to be more assertive in their territorial claims against China.
Pakistan has been working with the Asia Pacific Group to address the full range of issues identified in its mutual evaluation report, particularly, like full implementation of UNSC Resolution 1267. Pakistan has taken very meaningful steps to check such flow of money through a whole range of banking reforms to remain compliant with global anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regimes.
The US has shown concern over Pakistan’s ‘deficiencies in implementing anti-money laundering and counterterrorism laws’. State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert had expressed concern about ‘Pakistan’s deficiencies in the implementation of anti-money laundering and counterterrorism laws’. Pakistan says it has been taking steps to curb terror financing and money laundering. It is time for the blame game to stop. However, the US has been threatening to get tough with Islamabad over its alleged ties with militants, and last month President Donald Trump’s administration suspended aid worth about $2. Moves to put Islamabad on the FATF watch-list are counter-productive when Pakistan is already undergoing “mutual evaluation” by experts from other countries who are measuring progress in curbing illicit fund flows.” It’s a very intrusive process and… we are happy to work with them, but while we are being given mutual evaluation, it makes no sense for us to be now put on the watch-list,” Ismail said.
The US is not going to stop. It is time for our finance ministry to get hold of FATF’s evaluation checklist as well as action points of UNSCR1267, implement pending points and ask FATF for a comprehensive evaluation before June. Although Pakistan has done a lot in this field, it is not adequate. There is a need to document the whole range of national economy, including flow of charity, for only then one would be able to trace the origin and destination of money, until then every Tom, Dick and Harry would have space to point figures.
