U.S.-Pakistan relations are undergoing a significant shift in President Donald Trump’s second term, which seemed to begin in the spring—shortly after a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir triggered a conflict between India and Pakistan. Trump asserted that he had played a critical role in ending the crisis, and Islamabad lauded his supposed intervention.

Pakistani officials have clearly appealed to Trump’s sensibilities, first with words and then with offers: of access to rare earths, investments in cryptocurrency, and, most recently, the offer of a port facility on the Arabian Sea. To the Trump administration, these developments suggest a positive shift.

U.S.-Pakistan relations are undergoing a significant shift in President Donald Trump’s second term, which seemed to begin in the spring—shortly after a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir triggered a conflict between India and Pakistan. Trump asserted that he had played a critical role in ending the crisis, and Islamabad lauded his supposed intervention.

Pakistani officials have clearly appealed to Trump’s sensibilities, first with words and then with offers: of access to rare earths, investments in cryptocurrency, and, most recently, the offer of a port facility on the Arabian Sea. To the Trump administration, these developments suggest a positive shift.

However, historical record shows that hopes of a reliable and mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and Pakistan are likely to be unfounded.

In 1954, shortly before announcing a defense pact with Pakistan, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote a letter to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru arguing that the accord was not aimed at India and assuring that U.S. military aid would not be turned against the country. “What we are proposing to do, and what Pakistan is agreeing to, is not directed in any way against India,” Eisenhower wrote.

Beginning with Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, who governed from 1947 to 1951, Islamabad had courted Washington by asserting that it could serve as a bulwark against communism in South Asia. Keen on containing Soviet expansion, Eisenhower acquiesced. But Pakistan wanted to draw the United........

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