ISLAMABAD: US President Donald Trump will host Field Marshal General Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, at a White House lunch, according to the president’s daily public schedule for today, Wednesday.
The gathering comes amid heightened Middle East tensions and will be a rare direct engagement that signals a cautious thaw in ties between the two countries under Trump’s second presidency. After years of strained relations mainly over counter‑terrorism disagreements, both nations appear keen to rebuild military and economic ties.
Under Trump’s renewed outreach, Washington has praised Pakistan’s leadership and reinstated military cooperation previously curtailed over Afghanistan-related concerns. Islamabad, in turn, seeks to balance its longstanding partnership with China, including arms supply and defense infrastructure, with growing engagement with the United States
“The President has lunch with the Chief of Army Staff of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,” Trump’s daily public schedule for Wednesday released by his office read.
This will be the first time in several years that a Pakistani army chief is hosted by a sitting US president at the White House. The last publicly known high-level visit was by the then-army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who met senior Pentagon and State Department officials in Washington in 2022 but did not have an appointment with Joe Biden who was the president at the time.
