Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : Since Donald Trump assumed office in January 2025, U.S. policy toward China has been a study in contradictions. On some days, he hails China as a great country deserving normal relations with the United States. On others, he brandishes tariffs as weapons, imposing crushing duties on Chinese imports. This oscillation between praise and punishment betrays a failure to grasp the transformation of China. It is no longer the vulnerable power of a decade ago but an ascendant nation, propelled by consistent leadership, unity of purpose, and a relentless focus on rising as a global force.
China’s achievements are undeniable. Over the past decades, it has eliminated mass poverty, built unparalleled infrastructure, and secured dominance over industries that define the modern age. From artificial intelligence and quantum computing to aerospace, electric vehicles, and cyber security, China sits at the commanding heights of technology. Central to this dominance is its control over rare minerals—the essential inputs for semiconductors, batteries, aircraft, and advanced weaponry. While America was lulled into complacency, financing consumption with printed dollars, China quietly consolidated its grip on global mineral refining, leaving the United States exposed at the core of its supply chain.
Against this backdrop, Trump’s decision to impose a sweeping 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods by November 2025 has alarmed economists worldwide. Their verdict is nearly unanimous: tariffs will not cripple China but will instead damage the American economy. The burden falls squarely on U.S. consumers and industries, who must pay higher prices for imports and inputs. For companies such as Boeing, electric vehicle manufacturers, and defense contractors, which rely heavily on Chinese components, the effect will be immediate and severe. Instead of securing advantage, tariffs threaten to undercut sectors vital to U.S. national security and global competitiveness.
What makes this escalation more dangerous is China’s newfound willingness to retaliate. Traditionally cautious in the face of U.S. provocations, Beijing now responds with confidence. Its counter-tariffs on American soybeans struck at the heart of U.S. agriculture, redirecting purchases to Brazil, a BRICS partner eager to deepen trade ties. American farmers, once heavily dependent on Chinese markets, are left scrambling, while Brazil emerges as the winner. In this struggle, China adapts swiftly while the United States absorbs the blow.
The timing could not be worse. The U.S. government shutdown, now stretching into weeks, has already eroded public confidence and economic stability. Inflation is climbing, job growth is stalling, and uncertainty hangs over financial markets. Trump’s long-term vision of rebuilding domestic refining and mining capacity may carry merit, but the reality is sobering: constructing such infrastructure will take five to ten years. Until then, the United States remains tied to China. With Beijing redirecting exports to other markets at competitive rates, Washington risks isolation and decline in sectors where it once excelled.
The domestic repercussions extend beyond economics. Trump’s reliance on executive orders to deploy National Guard units across American cities has stirred resentment. Governors, civil society groups, and ordinary citizens increasingly resist federal overreach. What began as isolated protests now carries the seeds of civil disobedience. If these tensions deepen, the United States could face a crisis of internal legitimacy alongside its external challenges.
Internationally, relationships once grounded in cooperation have soured. Under Trump, ties with Mexico, Brazil, Canada, and Europe have deteriorated, shifting from cordiality to volatility. Diplomacy has been supplanted by threats, taunts, and public insults. America’s reputation as a partner of choice is waning, leaving it with fewer allies and diminishing influence. Soft power, once its greatest asset, has been eroded. What remains is the blunt projection of military might—a tool ill-suited for resolving economic and political disputes.
At the heart of the crisis lies the failure to pass a coherent federal budget. Without it, the machinery of government grinds to a halt. Public servants go unpaid, households lose income, consumer spending contracts, and economic growth falters. Inflation compounds the pain, creating a vicious cycle that ordinary Americans feel most acutely. Jobs vanish, prices rise, and confidence evaporates. The very people who form the backbone of the nation bear the brunt of political dysfunction.
It is this human cost that makes the current trajectory so alarming. Americans, resilient and innovative, do not deserve humiliation at home or antagonism abroad. They deserve leaders who strengthen alliances, foster diplomacy, and pursue prosperity through cooperation rather than confrontation. Instead, they are witnessing the erosion of goodwill with neighbors, partners, and global institutions, while being asked to shoulder the economic pain of tariffs and shutdowns.
The trade war with China is not an isolated clash. Its consequences ripple across the global economy. Supply chains are disrupted, investment flows redirected, and markets destabilized. For consumers worldwide, the fallout means higher prices and increased uncertainty. For businesses, it means recalibrating strategies and bearing new risks. A conflict between the world’s two largest economies cannot be contained—it reverberates in every corner of the globe.
The path forward demands wisdom, not bravado. Tariffs, coercion, and military posturing cannot secure a sustainable future. Only dialogue can. The United States and China, as the central pillars of the global economy, must find common ground. A balanced agreement that delivers tangible benefits to both peoples would not only stabilize relations but also reassure a world rattled by their rivalry. Cooperation would send a signal of stability, confidence, and hope—qualities the global economy sorely needs.
The stakes could not be higher. Confrontation risks undermining prosperity, fueling unrest, and deepening global fractures. Cooperation offers the chance to channel competition into progress, ensuring that innovation, trade, and development serve people everywhere. In the end, the choice is stark: a spiral of tariffs and tensions that punish the many, or a diplomatic breakthrough that uplifts all. For the sake of Americans, Chinese, and citizens across the world, one hopes that reason prevails before it is too late.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : President Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan is simple in intention but complex in execution. It envisions a staged ceasefire tied to the release of all hostages, a phased Israeli withdrawal linked to verifiable benchmarks, the deployment of an international stabilization force, and governance reforms that transition Gaza toward a reconstituted Palestinian authority supported by technocrats. It concludes with a pathway—deliberately flexible in language—toward Palestinian self-determination and eventual statehood. For Hamas, the red lines are disarmament and exclusion from governance; for Israel, they are credible security guarantees and an avoidance of steps that appear to reward an armed adversary. Between these lines lies a narrow diplomatic corridor where progress must move swiftly or collapse under mistrust.
Hamas’s reaction is a tactical acceptance laced with strategic reservations. Its negotiators abroad signal readiness for a full hostage exchange and a willingness to cede administrative control to an interim Palestinian body, but they resist unconditional disarmament and permanent exclusion from politics. Inside Gaza, command structures are fractured; senior military cadres are depleted; field units operate semi-independently. Leaders willing to compromise must still gauge whether they can enforce any agreement among fighters radicalized by devastation and grief. Hence, the idea of surrendering heavy weapons to third-party custodians while retaining light arms as a “defensive dignity” measure—symbolically vital to Hamas but unacceptable to Israel without intrusive verification.
Israel’s stance is equally ambivalent. Strategically, the plan offers what Israel has long demanded: the return of hostages, demilitarization of Gaza, and an international mechanism to assume day-to-day responsibilities while blocking rearmament. Politically, however, it forces the ruling coalition to digest hard realities: staged withdrawals under international supervision, re-empowerment of a reformed Palestinian Authority, and text that implicitly gestures toward a future Palestinian state. For an Israeli leadership dominated by hard-liners, this feels like concessions under fire and risks coalition fracture. Hence, Jerusalem insists on strict benchmarks, real-time monitoring, and a conditional, performance-based path to statehood—not one dictated by dates.
Iran’s posture is obstructionist yet calculated. A low-intensity conflict serves its interest by keeping Israel and the U.S. occupied while Iran restores deterrence and influence. It will quietly encourage factions to brand disarmament as betrayal and redirect loyalty to splinter groups. Still, Tehran recognizes that a united Arab-Western front behind a ceasefire could shrink its diplomatic space. Expect it to question verification mechanisms and sovereignty provisions while retaining leverage through militant proxies capable of derailing peace at will.
Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt form the indispensable mediating triangle. Ankara frames Hamas’s partial acceptance as a “constructive step” and demands Israel halt military operations. Doha, central to past negotiations, supports the swap framework and advocates timelines that preserve face for both parties. Egypt, the gatekeeper of Rafah, emphasizes sequencing—ceasefire first, synchronized exchanges of hostages and prisoners, and gradual transfer of governance under Arab oversight. Their combined credibility will determine whether enforcement mechanisms succeed or unravel.
The Palestinian Authority welcomes the plan but insists that Gaza’s sovereignty lies with the State of Palestine, unified with the West Bank under one civil and security framework. Yet its legitimacy deficit is glaring. Reforms must be real—transparent appointments, credible policing, and efficient public services—to regain Gazan trust. Jordan and other Arab states condition their support on those very reforms and on tangible progress toward the two-state horizon.
Europe, the U.K., Canada, and other Western partners view the plan as the first viable diplomatic track in months. Their priorities converge: secure a ceasefire, free all hostages, restore humanitarian lifelines, and cautiously advance a two-state endgame. They will bankroll stabilization and reconstruction but only under strict oversight. France and Germany call it “the best chance for peace”; Spain and Ireland demand stronger civilian protections; EU institutions emphasize timelines and enforceable humanitarian guarantees.
Pakistan, Malaysia, and the wider Global South call the plan imperfect but necessary to end the siege and save lives. They urge a complete ceasefire, unrestricted aid access, and firm guarantees against annexation or forced displacement. Their support will be critical in lending legitimacy to any multinational peace force that must not appear Western-controlled.
Yet Trump’s plan, while pragmatic, misses a critical element: justice. Peace without accountability is fragile, and reconstruction funded by neutral donors ignores moral responsibility. It was Israel that unleashed overwhelming destruction—flattening neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, and mosques, killing thousands of civilians, and turning Gaza into ruins. Therefore, the financial and moral burden of rebuilding Gaza must not fall upon the Arab world or the international community, but squarely upon those who caused the devastation—Israel and its allies, principally the United States. They must finance reconstruction, compensate victims, and fund the restoration of homes, infrastructure, and livelihoods. Anything less would legitimize impunity and perpetuate the cycle of destruction.
Equally, Hamas cannot escape scrutiny for its October 7 attack that killed and abducted civilians. Justice must be even-handed: a transparent, international investigation under UN auspices should probe alleged war crimes, genocide, and ethnic cleansing by both Hamas and Israel. Those who ordered or executed attacks on civilians, destroyed civilian infrastructure, or used starvation and displacement as tools of war must face the law. Impunity—whether for militants or states—cannot coexist with lasting peace.
A just and sustainable settlement would thus require three compacts added to Trump’s architecture. First, a clarity compact—public, enforceable annexes specifying who verifies compliance, how violations are penalized, and when corrective mechanisms activate. Second, a sequencing compact—a 30-60-90 day ladder of actions tied to verifiable outcomes: immediate ceasefire and aid corridors; phased withdrawals; transfer of civil governance; and reconstruction monitored by auditors from neutral states. Third, a dignity compact—addressing not only arms but human dignity: mobility, jobs, municipal elections within a year, and a binding roadmap toward statehood linked to measurable governance performance.
To this must be added a justice compact—a moral and legal foundation ensuring accountability. An independent tribunal, perhaps modeled on the International Criminal Court but regionally backed, should document atrocities, assign blame, and impose reparations. This would transform peace from a political bargain into a moral restoration, proving that even in geopolitics, justice is not optional.
Arab and Western partners must move from mediation to stewardship—deploying peacekeepers, engineers, and funds not as charity, but as custodians of shared responsibility. Moreover, the reconstruction of Gaza must be sponsored and fully financed by Israel—the power that devastated those neighborhoods—and by any allies whose military or material support enabled that destruction. This is not punitive grandstanding; it is deterrence by consequence: any nation or actor that resorts to ethnic cleansing, mass starvation, or genocidal tactics must know it will bear the full financial, legal and moral costs of rebuilding, reparations, and accountability.
The alternative is a replay of history: more funerals, deeper resentment, and another generation growing amid rubble. Flexibility on process is not weakness; it is maturity. If disarmament becomes verifiable, withdrawal becomes milestone-driven, governance becomes transparent, and accountability becomes universal, then the guns can fall silent, Gaza can rebuild, and the Middle East can finally begin to heal.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : We begin with a prayer for sound judgment and for the protection of innocent lives: May those who hold the levers of power choose restraint over rashness, and may the suffering of ordinary families be spared the thunder of renewed war.
President Trump’s recent declaration that the United States “wants [Bagram] back” — and his warning that “bad things are going to happen” if the demand is not met — is not merely a rhetorical flourish. It is a public ultimatum aimed at a sovereign state now governed by a regime that has repeatedly insisted on its independence and territorial integrity. To speak of “getting it back” without acknowledging the scale of what that implies is to invite a darkness of consequence that cannot be measured simply in dollars or troop rotations.
This urgency — presented as if the cost could be traded away for strategic advantage — deserves a sober pause. Ask plainly: why, at this perilous moment, should the United States risk lives and treasure to re-establish control over a base it abandoned amid humiliation just four years ago? The calculus offered is blunt and chilling: the perceived need is to neutralize threats before they can reach Israel, to blunt Iranian influence that allegedly “barters” through Afghan soil, and to deter Pakistan’s conventional and nuclear capabilities from shaping the outcome of conflicts in the Middle East. That rationale, if true, places Israel’s security at the center of an American sacrifice that would demand fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers be risked abroad — a moral choice that must be argued openly, not imposed as an offhand strategic fait accompli. The president’s public boast that the base “belongs to those that built it” treats sovereignty like a ledger entry rather than a lived reality; it treats bodies and futures as collateral.
We should be brutally honest about the price. Bagram is not a symbolic hangar you re-enter with a small contingent; it was the logistical heart of a two-decade campaign — runways for the largest transports, detention facilities, hospitals, administrative complexes and entire life-support systems for tens of thousands of troops. The base was vacated during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in July 2021; the departure remains a potent symbol of the limits of force and of the human cost of occupation. Any serious attempt to retake and hold Bagram would require a force posture that looks very much like re-invasion: large troop footprints, air defenses, long-term occupation forces and an open-ended commitment to secure supply lines against insurgents and regional spoilers. History warns that such ventures rarely end on the schedules or terms imagined by their planners.
Beyond the arithmetic of troops and treasure lies a web of regional dynamics that transform a tactical objective into a geopolitical tinderbox. China has quietly deepened its engagement with Kabul — courting mining contracts, infrastructure deals and incremental Belt-and-Road integration. Pakistan claims a deep strategic interest in Afghanistan; Iran watches its western neighbour for any shift that might threaten its influence; and a resurgent Taliban now trades in a complex mix of domestic control and international overtures. An American kinetic return to Bagram would not be an isolated operation; it would be a whiplash event that could provoke asymmetric retaliation from militant actors, diplomatic pushback from regional capitals, and a strategic confrontation with Beijing over the very infrastructure China is trying to build through soft power. The result would not be merely a regional skirmish; it would be a cascade of destabilising moves with human costs that ripple across borders.
There is also a moral dimension that many in Washington seem eager to elide. If the objective of recapturing Bagram is to create a buffer for Israel — then that aim must be debated openly in Congress and with the American public. Sacrificing American lives to serve another nation’s perceived buffer-zone preferences is a weighty judgment that should not be made in a propagandistic press moment. The American people deserve the facts, the alternatives, and the hard accounting of costs in blood and treasure before such a choice is made. To present threats in cinematic soundbites while concealing the true toll is a betrayal of democratic responsibility.
There is a better, more realistic path — and it is one the United States can actually afford both morally and strategically. Influence without occupation is not naïve; it is prudent. Jobs, roads, hospitals, schools and transparent investment frameworks win long-term leverage in fragile states far more effectively than boots do. Rather than threatening to seize territory, Washington should marshal humanitarian aid, underwrite infrastructure projects with strict governance and environmental protections, fund vocational training and support rule-of-law institutions that make communities resilient to extremist sway. Where extractive industries are concerned, revenue-sharing and oversight can reduce corruption and blunt local grievances that fuel insurgency. In short: rebuild with dignity, not coerce with force. Such an approach may be slower and less theatrical, but it matches moral legitimacy with strategic durability.
We must also confront the bitter irony: if the United States is prepared to pay any price to protect another country’s security ambitions, that willingness will be visible to regional powers and will seed resentment. It will feed narratives that the U.S. acts selectively, that American lives are expendable in service of foreign agendas, and that occupation is a policy tool rather than a last resort. Those narratives will be used by opponents to rally recruits and justify asymmetric attacks that will claim the very lives Washington professes to protect.
The choice facing Washington is, disturbingly, both strategic and moral. It can choose to replay the mistakes of the recent past — thunderous ultimatums, rushed deployments, and the false promise that territory can be held without hearts and minds — and thereby invite a long, painful entanglement whose costs are incalculable in mere budgets. Or it can choose to invest in reconstruction, partnerships and patient diplomacy that respect Afghan sovereignty and build durable influence. The latter requires humility, long-term funding commitments, and a willingness to measure success by human flourishing rather than by signage at a runway.
President Trump’s rhetoric — alternately promising peace and threatening occupation — sends the wrong signal to allies and adversaries alike. Tough talk may score at home; abroad it hardens resistance, rallies rivals, and complicates the very diplomacy Washington will need if it truly seeks influence in South and Central Asia. The moral urgency here is not merely about strategy; it is about responsibility to the families who will bear the cost if the sirens call of occupation is answered.
Let us end where we began: with a prayer for restraint, for wisdom, and for leaders who place human life before spectacle. The path that leads through reconstruction, coalition-building and respect for sovereignty is harder, less glamorous and slower — but it is the path that will spare the greatest number of lives and build a legacy worth defending. If America is to remain influential in a changing region, it must learn the hard lesson of Bagram: boots can seize terrain, but they cannot buy the consent that makes security last.