



Aaron Maté of the Real News spoke with Junaid Ahmad, Director of Center for Global Dialogue and Professor of Middle Eastern Politics at the University of Lahore, about the latest Trump turn against Pakistan.





Ahmad explains:





What has changed today, is that there's been a strengthening of the relationship, a deepening of the ties, between China and Pakistan. And of course, much of this has been in response to the way the US has strengthened its own ties with India and downgraded its relationship with Pakistan.





What Pakistan has done in turn is increase the relationship that it's had for a very, very long time with China. And that relationship is very strong right now. It's taking the shape of both geostrategic and military, as well as economic cooperation in the form of what's known as CPEC, the Chinese-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is part of the larger Chinese initiative known as The Belt and Road Initiative of Eurasian integration, of interconnectivity. So, these developments are taking place. There's the rise of China in the region. There's of course, growing Russian independence.









What we see here is actually a US effort to break the BRICS bloc, by trying to divide geostrategically the region. Through this turn against Pakistan, Trump is trying to "lure" the weaker link of the BRICS Asian branch: India.





India appears to be a power that keeps some distance from the - currently solid - Sino-Russian alliance. It seems that India tries to balance between its BRICS partners and the West with which has deep economic interests.





The recent Trump turn against Pakistan could be explained by an effort of the US to bring India closer to the Western bloc, as the highly problematic relationship between India and Pakistan does not seem to be improving.





Previously, Washington attempted to distant Brazil from BRICS, by installing its puppet in power, after overthrowing Dilma Rousseff through a constitutional coup.





The US imperialism has a long history of endless intervention in the US backyard - Latin America. Apart from the Leftist governments that refuse to implement the neoliberal policies in favor of plutocracy and against the majority, the Washington neocons have an additional serious reason to target Brazil and overthrow Rousseff, due to her initiatives for Brazil's continuous and "dangerous" approach with the Sino-Russian bloc, mainly through the BRICS.





This is a reason which probably explains why Rousseff is being targeted. Apparently she came very close to Russia and China, the key countries who try to form rapidly an independent bloc, especially in the economic sector, to offer an alternative against the Western neoliberal monopoly.



