Pakistan’s 2-Track Border Strategy: Raids and Tariff Relief
Pakistan’s frontier with Afghanistan is a pressure cooker where economics and security collide—and that’s the case Noureen Akhtar makes. In early August, the army said it killed 33 fighters in Balochistan’s Zhob district and another 50 over several days of clashes. A limited offensive in Bajaur displaced nearly 100,000 people, with the province pledging 50,000-rupee grants per family to blunt the shock. Yet the same border is an economic artery: in the first half of 2025, formal trade neared $1 billion. To keep that lifeline open, Islamabad and Kabul launched an “Early Harvest Program” on August 1 that trims tariffs on select farm goods—Afghan tomatoes and grapes moving south, Pakistani mangoes and citrus heading north.
Akhtar says Islamabad is testing a two-track formula: targeted raids paired with guarded openness at the gates. It’s fragile. Closures at Torkham, Chaman, and Ghulam Khan have stranded thousands of people and trucks, spoiled perishables, and pushed commerce into smuggling lanes. Three risks stand out: attacks aimed at crossings to force shutdowns; traders shifting permanently to Iranian routes; and a vacuum in public messaging that lets fear harden into policy.
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Her fixes read like a border playbook: a standing cell linking the army, customs, and trade; clear protocols for partial closures and fast-lane exemptions for patients, students, and urgent cargo; routine reviews of tariff relief tied to real flows; and time-bound operations with automatic mitigation—temporary passes, escrow for cold-chain shipments, and posted reopening timelines.
August offered a pilot: compensation plus tariff cuts preserved some trust while guns were still firing. Whether that balance holds will hinge on consistency—and the will to treat border management as daily governance, not crisis theater. For the details and policy checklist, read Akhtar’s piece in full.
