US President Donald Trump with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Army Chief Asim MunirThe TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump met Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Army Chief Asim Munir in the White House Oval Office on Thursday in a public embrace of a country he had derided as a deceitful terrorist haven for much of his political career, including during his first term. The White House did not release any details of the meeting, nor were there any statements or readouts, much less a press conference in the hours after the unusual engagement that included "Field Marshal" Munir, regarded as the country’s de facto ruler. But a clutch of photos released by the Pakistani government showed Sharif and Munir seated in the gilded Oval Office for talks that were said to have lasted 80 minutes, and later posing with a grinning Trump with his characteristic thumbs up gesture.Trump appeared to be showing a mock up of the White House in a third photo, and in a fourth, secretary of state Marco Rubio is seen guffawing with the Pakistani leaders. The US President also conspicuously wore a pin of a fighter jet along with the trademark American flag. While Pakistan partisans claimed he wore the pin to recognise its downing of Indian aircraft during the recent war, it turned out that he wore it earlier in the day for his meeting with Turkish President Erdogan to press for sale of F-16s and F-35s to Ankara.Shortly before the Pakistan meeting, Trump had boasted about American military manufacturing prowess and said foreign leaders and generals were lining up to visit US factories to buy equipment, without specifically mentioning Pakistan. Erdovan, the leader of Turkey, a NATO ally, had met Trump earlier in the day and Washington has been hawking its military wares to him too.Absent any briefing from either side till the time of writing, speculation raged about the real purpose of the Pakistani meeting, which came soon after Trump had hosted a lunch for Erdogan, who, like with India, was asked by the US to cease purchasing Russian energy. But Pakistan is not a significant economic power, so much of the conjecture centered on Trump’s recent post seeking to retake the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan now under Taliban rule, and also Washington repurposing Islamabad for exploiting its purported mineral wealth. The US also appears to have taken a benign view of the Saudi-Pak defense pact even though it is ostensibly aimed at Israel, arguably the closest US ally.Also read: Trump targets India repeatedly in rambling speech at UN, makes outrageous claimEven Pakistan’s defense minister Khwaja Asif, excluded from the meeting where his Army Chief was present, shed little light on the meeting with a cryptic social media post that read: “Victory over India, defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, and unprecedented progress in Pak-US relations. 2025, a year full of successes, Alhamdulillah. The continuation of the successes of the hybrid system's partnership. Allahu Akbar.”The meeting, which was scheduled for 4.30 pm, began half an hour late as Trump was busy signing executive orders and bantering with reporters. Shortly before he met the Pakistani duo, he told the White House press corps, "I'm very dissatisfied with what Russia's doing and what President Putin is doing. I haven't liked it at all...I have solved seven wars. In fact, we have a great leader coming, the prime minister of Pakistan and the field marshal. Field Marshal is a very great guy and so is the prime minister, both, and they're coming, and they may be in this room right now. I don't know, because we're late...they actually maybe somewhere in the Oval Office…behind you."Also read: Trump slams Russia, Putin on Ukraine; repeats 'seven wars' claimThe fact that he did not mention, or remember, their names was trademark Trump transactional, which some Pakistani analysts opposed to the current regime lit into. "Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims in his first term alone. His strategy is pure exaggeration. Here, he inflates the stature of a military dictator and his puppet with empty praise, all to conscript their services for his dirty work in Gaza," Adil Raja, a retired Pakistani Army officer and a vocal critic of the establishment he once served, said on X."Calling Pakistan's fascist rulers "great leaders" is just the price tag for making them his cleanup crew. Only idiots can celebrate this statement!" Raja, now a staunch supporter of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and a social media influencer, wrote.Supporters of the current Pakistani dispensation though rejoiced over the country getting back into the good books of the White House after almost two decades of being in the doghouse for its use of terrorist proxies, something even Trump had flagged as far back as 2012 when he was still on the margins of US politics. “When will Pakistan apologize to us for providing safe sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden for 6 years?! Some 'ally.'" he posted on July 5, 2012. And on January 1, 2018, during his first term as President: “We no longer pay Pakistan the $Billions because they would take our money and do nothing for us, Bin Laden being a prime example, Afghanistan being another. They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return. That’s ENDING!" That indeed now appears to have ended, with Pakistan opening up its purported mineral wealth for exploitation, and according to several media accounts, serving as a crypto front for US businesses to milk.