A recent expose by Financial Times, published on October 4, has revealed that the Pakistan military has offered the United States the Pasni port in Balochistan on the Arabian Sea coast. This latest move fits into a familiar pattern where the Pakistani Army has used the country’s political geography as a bargaining chip to court foreign patrons, often at the expense of its sovereignty and own citizens.

According to the FT, Pakistan’s powerful military establishment, led by Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, has been courting the Trump administration with what it calls an “opportunity for Washington to have a foothold in one of the world’s most sensitive regions". The proposal follows a broader agreement between Islamabad and Washington that would allow American companies to mine critical minerals in the country’s resource-rich but desperately impoverished Balochistan province. Under this offer, the seaside fishing town of Pasni would be developed into a terminal for shipping Pakistan’s critical minerals to the United States.

The choice of otherwise nondescript Pasni is hardly incidental. It is roughly 70 miles from the Chinese-built and operated Gwadar Port, which is the flagship project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Moreover, it is merely 100 miles from Iran, thereby increasing its strategic value. Pakistan’s military establishment is promoting it as an asset for Washington as it could become a vantage position to monitor both China’s growing footprint in the region as well as Iran’s regional manoeuvring. To Asim Munir’s calculus, the offer is a strategic gold through which it could restore relevance with Washington while balancing an increasingly asymmetric partnership with Beijing.

However, underneath this strategic gloss lies a deeper story, which is one that exposes the hollow core of Pakistan’s political economy and its enduring exploitation of Balochistan. What will be framed by the Pakistani establishment as a geopolitical masterstroke in the days ahead is in reality yet another chapter in the province’s decades-long resource plunder.

Balochistan, which is the largest but least populated province of Pakistan, holds some of the richest deposits of copper, gold, and rare earth minerals in South Asia. Yet it remains the poorest region in the country with its people trapped in multidimensional poverty, its towns devoid of infrastructure, and its voice stifled by military suppression with hundreds jailed and thousands disappeared. For instance, nearly 71 percent of the population in Balochistan is living below the poverty line, with some districts having as much as 91 per cent poverty rate as the 2025 report of the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF).

Pakistan’s successive governments, which includes both civilian and military alike, have treated Balochistan as a resource colony. For instance, the Saindak and Reko Diq mining projects, which are jointly operated with Chinese companies, have long symbolised the extractive and imperial relationship between Islamabad and Balochistan. None of the profits generated by the extraction of the provincial minerals return to the local communities who endure displacement, impoverishment, and militarisation.

As such, the Financial Times report now adds an American layer to this already extractive equation. The proposed Pasni terminal is not a development initiative for Balochistan but an export corridor for American mining interests. By positioning Pasni as a shipping hub for “critical minerals", the Pakistan Army is strengthening a model that has enriched military and political elites in Rawalpindi and Islamabad alike while perpetuating poverty among the Baloch.

While this goes without saying that Rawalpindi will present these projects as engines of national growth, the reality is always and altogether a different story. For decades, Balochistan has contributed disproportionately to Pakistan’s energy and mineral output but it has hardly ever received a proportional share in federal development funds. The province’s literacy rate hovers around 42 percent, which is far below the national average of over 60 percent. Moreover, the state’s heavy-handed counterinsurgency operations have created a cycle of resentment, repression, and rebellion that has endured for decades, with the current cycle of nationalist insurgency strongest ever.

The Pasni offer, therefore, is not a sign of modernisation but a continuation of exploitation under the........

© News18