By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb will travel to Washington on Saturday for three days of talks aimed at advancing a bilateral trade and investment framework with the US, according to diplomatic sources familiar with the itinerary, as the two governments race to settle outstanding tariff questions before a key deadline expires this month.
Aurangzeb is scheduled to meet officials from the Office of the US Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the International Development Finance Corporation and the International Monetary Fund, the sources said. The visit marks his second trip to the American capital this year and comes as negotiators from both countries work to finalise terms of an economic partnership that has been under discussion since talks resumed in Washington last week.
The trip is timed against a fast-approaching deadline. A temporary 10% tariff the Trump administration imposed on imports from Pakistan and dozens of other countries is due to lapse July 24, once the 150-day window allowed under Section 122 of the Trade Act runs out. That provision became the administration’s fallback after the US Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — the legal basis for the sweeping duties President Donald Trump announced in April 2025 — exceeded executive authority.
Those original IEEPA tariffs had set a 29% duty on Pakistani exports before a Pakistani delegation, in talks last July, negotiated the rate down to 19%. The Supreme Court’s ruling has since scrambled that arrangement, leaving both sides to work out a durable substitute ahead of the Section 122 expiration.
Complicating the picture further, Pakistan is one of nearly 60 countries under a separate USTR investigation, brought under Section 301 of the Trade Act, examining allegations of forced labour and related practices in Pakistani supply chains. Islamabad has filed detailed responses to the agency, including a fresh submission this week timed to the latest round of negotiations. Under the current Section 301 proposal, Pakistan would face an additional 10% tariff, compared with a proposed 12.5% rate for India and 53 other countries named in the same inquiry. Public hearings on the matter are ongoing.
Discussions during Aurangzeb’s visit are expected to centre on the architecture of a bilateral trade agreement, including tariff levels, market access and broader investment cooperation, the sources said. Separate meetings with the Exim Bank and the DFC will focus on financing options for infrastructure, energy and private-sector projects — areas Islamabad has flagged as priorities for attracting US capital beyond the immediate tariff dispute.
Aurangzeb was last in Washington in April for the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, where he held more than 50 meetings with multilateral lenders, investors and credit-rating agencies to lay out Pakistan’s economic reform agenda and its progress toward macroeconomic stability. He used that trip to brief investors on plans to return to international capital markets through panda bonds and eurobonds after a multiyear absence, and met separately with US Treasury officials to discuss how regional tensions and swings in global energy prices tied to the conflict involving Iran were affecting Pakistan’s economic outlook.
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