Trump Asked Pakistan’s Military Ruler Asim Munir to “Resolve” the Imran Khan Issue. So Far, He’s Not Listening.

Members of the Pakistani diaspora continue to petition for the release of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, as Pakistan’s security forces clamp down on his supporters.

Pakistan's former prime Minister Imran Khan arrives at the high court in Islamabad on May 12, 2023. (Photo by AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Images).

During a White House meeting in June, President Donald Trump told Pakistan’s de facto ruler, Asim Munir, that he needed to “resolve” the situation with Imran Khan, two sources familiar with the exchange told Drop Site News. Khan, the former prime minister, has been jailed in solitary confinement for some two years, after he was removed from office with the support of the Biden administration.

Trump, addressing Munir by his new title of “Field Marshal,” said that Pakistani American support had been crucial to Trump’s election, and that he has many Pakistani friends. Pakistani-Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of Khan and want the former cricket star to be freed. Khan’s party dominated elections in February 2024, only to see the military rig the results and effectively annul the contest, draping establishment parties with a costume of power instead.

According to the sources, the lunch meeting between Trump and Munir began with four attendees from each side, including the Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi. During the meeting, Trump emphasized his commitment to settling the political standoff involving Imran Khan. Trump told Munir he had promised supporters he would get the Imran Khan situation resolved.

“I have Pakistani friends who helped me win the election. I have many Pakistani friends also. You need to resolve this issue,” Trump said, addressing Munir directly, according to one source. A second source confirmed the substance of the quote, but couldn’t confirm the quote verbatim.

Trump and Khan enjoyed warm relations during Trump’s first term and have traced similar arcs. Both were global celebrities and playboys in the 1980s and 1990s, entered politics late in life as populists, and have clashed with their respective deep states.

Trump’s intervention on behalf of Khan comes amid a continued push by members of the Pakistani diaspora and his family to intervene for his release. The former prime minister is imprisoned under difficult conditions, with limited access to legal counsel and the outside world. Khan was removed from power in 2022 following pressure from the State Department under the Biden administration who had bristled at Khan’s criticism of U.S. foreign policy in the region as well as his commitment to remaining neutral during the Russia-Ukraine conflict. A classified internal cipher from the Pakistani government, published by Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain, later revealed that U.S. diplomats from the Biden administration had threatened Pakistan with serious damage to bilateral ties were Khan to remain in power. A no-confidence vote was arranged shortly after the meeting.

In the weeks since the June 19 meeting, Munir has made no visible moves toward honoring Trump’s request. Instead, he has threatened Khan’s sons with arrest if they attempt to visit him and continues to deny his sister visitation access. To further clamp down on all support for Khan, the Pakistani government blocked 27 of the largest news and current affairs YouTube channels in the country this week, effectively killing the emerging Pakistani alternate news media that was the last remaining source of news related to Khan. Pakistani mainstream media was already firmly under military control. Meanwhile, the military has shown no signs of halting the kidnappings and arrests of Khan’s social media supporters, and has continued to effectively steal PTI’s reserved seats from the parliament—hinting that the military wants to shut down everything related to Imran Khan for good, instead of resolving it.

The meeting between Trump and Munir followed a tense, four-day battle between Pakistan and India in May. By some accounts, that conflict had come perilously close to nuclear escalation after days of intense clashes. Pakistan claimed that it shot down four Indian Rafale jets, along with several other Russian manufactured jets and destroyed an expensive S-400 anti-aircraft system. The fate of the Rafales—whose loss the Indian government has not confirmed—has become the subject of intense public scrutiny. The French-made jets, recently procured by India at significant expense, were considered the crown jewels of the Indian Air Force. Meanwhile, India asserted it had successfully targeted several Pakistani air bases—including a BrahMos cruise missile strike on the Nur Khan Airbase in Rawalpindi, as well as a reported missile attack near a Pakistani nuclear facility—as part of what it called Operation Sindoor.

Trump’s Administration and Changing Allegiances

On May 10, as global anxiety over the conflict going nuclear continued to spike, Trump unexpectedly announced a truce on Truth Social, claiming a significant U.S. role in mediation. Indian officials later tried to downplay the U.S. pressure for a ceasefire, claiming that the agreement was reached directly between the Directors General of Military Operations of India and Pakistan. Pakistan, however, acknowledged American mediation, and in the process, aligned itself more with the United States, exposing a growing rift between India and the U.S.

In the months since, Pakistan has continued playing up Trump’s role in negotiating the ceasefire between the two countries, publicly nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize—an award that he reportedly has long coveted. Interestingly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also did the same for Trump this month, for brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Neither Pakistan nor Israel have been invited by the Nobel committee to make such nominations in any official capacity.

Pakistan has been enjoying increasingly warm ties with the U.S. since Trump’s election. Nearly a month before the Pakistan-India clashes, Pakistan scored a significant public relations victory with the new administration when, during an address to Congress, Trump announced that Pakistani forces had captured Mohammad Sharifullah, the alleged mastermind of the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul, and were willing to hand him over. The announcement came notwithstanding significant questions about the level of actual involvement that Sharifullah had in the attack.

At the time, Drop Site News reported that there was a quiet but intense power struggle inside the U.S. government, with senior officials at the State Department pushing back against what they viewed as the CIA’s unquestioned backing of the Pakistani military. The CIA wanted to retain policy leadership over the United States’s foreign relations with Pakistan using the Pakistani military as the sole intermediary between the two countries, while some in the State Department warned that this would undermine efforts to support democratic governance and civilian rule in the country. This was also a campaign promise by Trump allies to a significant portion of the Pakistani diaspora in the U.S. that had endorsed Trump in the run-up to the presidential elections.

During his time in office, Trump even said in a speech that Khan had told him that the killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was "the biggest moment of my life,” and that Khan had gone into seclusion at his home immediately afterwards for a week. This account was later disputed as Khan had appeared at a political rally the next day and made no mention of the assassination.

Trump’s pressure on Munir to resolve the standoff with Khan may offer a new lifeline to the imprisoned former leader. The party that he led, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) has faced ongoing suppression by the military establishment following a rigged election stolen from the party last year, including torture, extrajudicial detention, assassination, and other activities aimed at disrupting its ability to operate in Pakistan. The military has also continued targeting PTI activists abroad, including through extrajudicial detention and extradition. Last year, two members of the PTI social media team were targeted for extradition after they left Pakistan for the United Arab Emirates.