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The ceasefire collapsed. So did Pakistan’s economic window

45 0
29.07.2026

The ceasefire collapsed. So did Pakistan’s economic window 

https://arab.news/jxq4w

When I wrote for these pages in June, I argued that Pakistan’s diplomatic success in brokering the US-Iran ceasefire had opened a narrow window, roughly 90 days, to convert geopolitical capital into tangible economic gains. The logic was simple: sustained calm in the Gulf would lower oil prices, restore shipping routes, improve investor sentiment, and give Islamabad breathing room to consolidate its fragile macroeconomic recovery. That window is now closing faster than anyone anticipated. 

The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, signed in June, gave the two sides 60 days to negotiate a permanent end to hostilities. Instead, on 8 July, the ceasefire collapsed following a dispute over merchant shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump declared the truce no longer in effect the following day, and the US and Iran have since exchanged military strikes. 

This does not invalidate the peace dividend thesis. It recalibrates it. The economic benefits were always contingent on sustained calm. The question now is whether Pakistan can extract partial dividends from even temporary de-escalations, or whether the intermittent nature of the truce creates a new kind of uncertainty, one that deters the very investment the peace dividend was meant to unlock. 

The........

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