Advisers to Pakistani army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir have approached U.S. officials with a proposal to build and operate a new port terminal on the Arabian Sea, according to a report by the Financial Times on Friday, citing a plan seen by the newspaper.
The proposal centers on the port town of Pasni in Balochistan, a province bordering Afghanistan and Iran, and is specifically designed to facilitate the export of Pakistan’s vast deposits of critical minerals.
Focus on Critical Minerals
The plan envisages American investors financing and operating a terminal in Pasni. The core objective is to create a new commercial gateway for accessing Pakistan’s mineral-rich western provinces. Importantly, the blueprint explicitly excludes the construction of any U.S. military bases, focusing instead on attracting development finance for a rail network that would link the port to the key mining regions.
This move follows a recent high-level meeting in September at the White House, where Field Marshal Munir and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with U.S. President Donald Trump. During the meeting, Prime Minister Sharif sought U.S. investment across several sectors, including agriculture, technology, mining, and energy.
According to the Financial Times, the offer for the Pasni port was floated with U.S. officials and was shared with Munir ahead of his late-September meeting with President Trump. The diplomatic outreach is seen as part of Pakistan’s broader effort to pivot its economy and secure foreign investment, particularly from the U.S., a shift that has gained traction with the new U.S. administration.
The U.S. has shown a growing strategic interest in securing new sources for critical minerals and rare earth elements, which are vital for its high-tech, defense, and clean-energy industries. Pakistan, particularly its province of Balochistan, is known to hold significant, though largely untapped, mineral reserves. This interest was underscored by a previous $500 million investment deal signed in early September between the military-run Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and the U.S.-based company, United States Strategic Metals (USSM).
Reuters, which also reported on the development, noted that it could not immediately verify the details of the Financial Times report. The U.S. State Department, the White House, the Pakistani Army, and Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.