IMF bailout to Pak: Ex-Pentagon official criticizes Trump
New Delhi: Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has criticized the Donald Trump administration and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for approving a billion-dollar bailout instalment for Pakistan during its recent conflict with India.
He termed this move as a ‘strategic blunder,’ underlining Islamabad’s deep ties with terrorism and its growing financial dependency on China, the media reported on Friday.
The USD 1 billion bailout came just after the brutal terror attack in Pahalgam, which resulted in the death of 26 tourists.
Rubin also highlighted the IMF’s move of injecting funds into Islamabad as indirectly supporting China’s strategic expansion.
“Pakistan is today a satrapy of China… and its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has sunk Islamabad deeper into a USD 40 billion debt,” he said, referring to Beijing’s heavy investment in Pakistan under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Rubin called the IMF’s decision to grant a USD 1 billion bailout to Pakistan an affront to US foreign policy. He also highlighted that Pakistan’s external debt is mounting and its economic fundamentals are deteriorating.
The IMF funding essentially keeps China’s geopolitical interests afloat.
India has voiced serious concerns over the IMF’s financial support to Pakistan. At the IMF board meeting that preceded the approval, Indian officials warned about the “possibility of misuse of debt-financing funds for state-sponsored cross-border terrorism”.
New Delhi also pointed out that Pakistan has been a serial IMF borrower, having received disbursements in 28 of the last 35 years.
Rubin urged the Trump Administration to use its financial clout in such decisions and warned that terrorist sponsors seldom prioritise their own citizens’ well-being.
(Subham Singh)
