WASHINGTON: A surprise New Year’s Day tweet by US President Donald Trump inwhich he appeared to decree an end to US aid for Pakistan, sent USofficials scrambling to suspend security assistance without even knowinghow much aid they were freezing, four US officials said.
The decision to freeze up to about $2 billion in security aid, according toa later estimate by US officials, to a nuclear-armed ally is the latestexample of how, nearly a year into Trump’s presidency, US officialssometimes have to scurry to turn his tweets into policy.
The Trump administration had been weighing an aid freeze for months,including in a meeting of top national security advisers before Christmas.Washington has for years accused Islamabad of providing sanctuary toterrorists.
At the time of Trump’s tweet, a US assessment of Pakistani compliance withthose demands was still underway. A cohesive US policy – includingpreparations for possible Pakistani reaction – was not expected to becompleted until March or April, three US officials interviewed said.
“None of the elements of a coherent policy was in place, or even close athand, when the president, in effect, made a policy announcement,” said oneUS official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity. “Despite amad scramble to backfill a tweet, we still don’t have … an effective policyin place.”
Michael Anton, a spokesman for the National Security Council, did notaddress whether the tweet had sped up the policy process, saying Trump hadmade clear his intention to take a new, tougher stance toward Pakistan aspart of the Afghanistan war strategy he unveiled in August.
“This action is being taken after months of careful interagency review. Anysuggestion to the contrary is false,” he said.
The State Department declined to comment.
Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when he posted his tweet at7:12 am on January 1, after hosting a lavish New Year’s Eve party. Untilthen he had kept a relatively low public profile while he mostly golfed.
The United States, he tweeted, had “foolishly” given Pakistan more than $33billion in aid and “they have given us nothing but lies and deceit,thinking our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists wehunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”
It is not clear what prompted Trump to issue the tweet, which infuriatedPakistani officials. Pakistan’s National Security Committee of seniorcivilian and military officials denounced it as “completelyincomprehensible.” US Ambassador David Hale was summoned to the ForeignMinistry for an explanation.
Caught by surprise on their New Year’s Day holiday, a small group of WhiteHouse aides and other top officials scrambled to make good on thepresident’s unexpected statement, said a senior US official who was part ofthe consultations.
There was no time to issue a formal White House policy directive outliningthe number of frozen funds, four officials said.
When the administration confirmed that it was suspending security aid toPakistan four days after Trump’s tweet, the State Department was still notable to quantify how much aid was at stake, underscoring how far USofficials had been from implementing any policy before the president’sstatement.
US officials later said the decision could affect about $1 billion inplanned security assistance and $900 million to reimburse Pakistan forcounter-terrorism operations.
Another sign of the haste was the failure to give Pakistan the usualdiplomatic courtesy of a warning before the president’s tweet, US officialssaid.
Perhaps most seriously, they said, there was no time to prepare forpossible retaliation.
The Pentagon and State Department were especially concerned that Pakistanmight close the air and land corridors on which US-led troops and Afghanforces in landlocked Afghanistan depend for supplies, the officials said.So far, Pakistan has not done so.
At the time the decision was made, there was no agreement with neighbouringcountries for alternative routes, five US officials said.
“It appeared to be a tweet in search of a strategy,” said Dan Feldman, aformer US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“There seemed to be a flurry of inter-agency activity after that tweet toarrive at some sort of policy to frame it … to prove it wasn’t just animpulsive tweet.”
It was not the first time that US officials have been caught off guard byTrump’s fondness for formulating policy by tweet.
Last year, Trump tweeted that the US government would not accepttransgender people to serve in the military, catching the Pentagonleadership by surprise. His statement eventually had to be walked back. -Agencies