PAKISTAN PERSPECTIVE

Islamabad reads with growing concern the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to New Delhi on May 23, 2026. For Pakistan, this trip—Rubio's first to India—fits into a particularly disorienting sequence of American diplomatic moves: one week after attending the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, the U.S. top diplomat hurries to reassure India, a partner whose relations with Washington had been strained by the opening salvos of Trump's presidency.

What captures Islamabad's attention is precisely the timing and choreography. Pakistani press outlets, relayed by Geo News and Dawn, run headlines about Trump's "China lovefest" followed by New Delhi's return to favor—a balancing act that Pakistan interprets as an American attempt to rebuild an Indo-Pacific facade after sowing doubt among its own allies. Trump has not called Modi since Beijing, unlike he did with Japan's Prime Minister. This signal of exclusion, noted by Dawn, has not escaped Islamabad: if even New Delhi could find itself sidelined by Washington, no regional partner is truly safe.

The reactivation of the Quad—with its Foreign Ministers meeting scheduled for May 26 in New Delhi, including the United States, India, Australia, and Japan—reinforces Pakistan's reading of strategic encirclement aimed at China, Islamabad's principal ally. Dawn recalls that Beijing has consistently denounced the Quad as an attempt to surround it. For Pakistan, whose cooperation with China is intensifying along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the strengthening of this quadrilateral format sends a direct geopolitical signal.

Modi's invitation to the White House, conveyed by Rubio on Trump's behalf, is received in Islamabad as confirmation of a hierarchy of American priorities in South Asia. Rubio called the U.S.-India relationship the "cornerstone" of America's Indo-Pacific approach. Within this framework, Islamabad—while occasionally courted by Washington—struggles to find its place in an architecture where American energy, technology, and security interests converge on New Delhi. Trump had mused in China about a "G2" with Beijing, a formula that unnerves allies; Rubio in New Delhi reaffirms instead a "natural" partnership with India. Between these two poles, Pakistan measures the narrowness of its strategic margin.