Pakistan pitches Nobel, crypto and rare earths to woo Donald Trump

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Pakistan is pitching itself as a bitcoin mining hub, a source of rare earths and offering its support for a Nobel Peace prize for Donald Trump, as a cash-strapped Islamabad seeks to stave off hefty trade tariffs and deepen ties with the White House.

Its finance ministry is battling to secure a trade with deal the US, the country’s largest export partner, and hopes to avert tariffs, which could go as high as 29 per cent on July 9.

Islamabad hopes crypto and mining, as well as nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, will help it get on the president’s good side, according to officials in Islamabad and analysts.

“Pakistan has been quite smart about getting the administration’s attention, capitalising on its broader global interests in crypto and critical minerals and pitching its own offerings,” said Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

The US accounts for a fifth of exports from Pakistan, a big garments manufacturer.

Pakistan’s negotiators, including the crypto minister, arrived in Washington on Monday for talks with US trade representative Jamieson Greer. Pakistani officials say any deal could include promises to purchase US-origin cotton and soyabeans — and “strategic and investment” partnership in the mining sector. The White House declined to comment on Pakistani statements that a deal could come as early as this week.

Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, discussed trade and his country’s potential for mining bitcoin and rare earth minerals in a lunch with Trump last month, according to official readouts of the meeting.

The meeting, in which sources say Munir was handed a Maga hat and key to the White House, was the culmination of a months-long charm offensive to court investors and businesspeople close to the US president.

Officials say crypto and mining could help fix to Pakistan’s long-troubled economy, pathways to employ its youth and deliver fresh investment to free it from its mounting public debts. Pakistan has said it will create a “strategic” bitcoin reserve — modelled on the one established by Trump in March — and allocate 2,000 MW of electricity towards cryptocurrency mining. 

In February, Pakistan launched a crypto council to regulate blockchain and digital assets. In April, it appointed former Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao as a strategic adviser on crypto regulation. Zhao spent four months in jail last year after he pleaded guilty in the US to failing to establish proper money laundering controls. He is seeking a pardon from Trump.

In May, Pakistan’s finance ministry said it would create a digital assets authority to “regulate blockchain-based financial infrastructure”. 

Islamabad has signed a “letter of intent” with the founders of Trump-backed crypto group World Liberty Financial to co-operate on blockchain and stablecoin adoption, including Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.

In May, Bilal bin Saqib, Pakistan’s crypto minister and an adviser to WLF, told a Las Vegas audience including US vice-president JD Vance and the president’s son Eric Trump that he wanted to recognise Donald Trump for being “the president who saved crypto”.

Saqib later visited the White House, met Brandon Lutnick, chair of Cantor Fitzgerald and the son of US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, in New York, and has invited Justin Sun, the founder of digital asset platform Tron with ties to the Trump family, to visit Pakistan.

Saqib told the Financial Times that Pakistan’s crypto diplomacy has “allowed us to rebrand Pakistan as a builder — not just beneficiary — in the global innovation ecosystem”.

Along with crypto ventures, Munir has called on US investors to help what officials claim is trillions of dollars of untapped mineral wealth in its volatile western provinces.

Robert Seiden, a New York-based lawyer who is lobbying for Pakistan, said Washington and Islamabad are in talks to draw up a mineral deal.

The minerals lie beneath two regions gripped by deadly insurgencies. Pakistani and US officials say the US government is particularly interested in Pakistan’s reserves of antimony, a mineral used in flame retardants and batteries.

“You guys are sitting on trillions of dollars of rare earth minerals right now,” Zach Witkoff, said in Lahore during an April trip. “By tokenising them, you can actually make it a liquid market and you can bring enormous wealth to the youth of this country.” 

Whatever the outcome, the Asia-Pacific Foundation’s Kugelman said that Islamabad’s pitches on crypto and mining offer it “a way to gain a foothold in Trump’s Washington, to keep Pakistan on the radar and open up opportunities for future discussions”.