The Washington Post - 17.02.2020

A24 eZ re the washington post.friday, february 21 , 2020

Pakistan was placed on the monitoring body’s “gray list” in June 2018, a designation that weakened the country’s economy. While the FATF has no enforcement powers, its decision bruised Pakistan’s reputation at a time when the country was looking to the international community for loans and foreign investment. The most high-profile terror-

ism case Pakistan has tackled in recent months has been that of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the accused mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed more than 160. This month, Saeed was sentenced to 11 years in prison for financing terrorist op- erations, a step that even critics of the government acknowledge is positive.

The State Department’s senior South Asia diplomat, Alice Wells, called it “an important step for- ward... for Pakistan in meeting its international commitments to combat terrorist financing,” according to a statement posted to Twitter. James Schwemlein, a former senior State Department official fo- cused on South Asia, said steps

BY SUSANNAH GEORGE AND SHAIQ HUSSAIN

ISLAMABAD, PAkIStAn — Over
the past year, Pakistan says it has
“fought and eradicated the men-
ace of terrorism from its soil” by
carrying out arrests, seizing prop-
erty a nd freezing bank accounts of
groups designated as terrorists by
the United States and the United
Nations.
Analysts and current and for-
mer U.S. officials predict these
moves will be e nough t o keep Paki-
stan off a global blacklist for fi-
nancing terrorism and money
laundering. But they caution they
will do little to address Pakistan’s
history of supporting militants, a
key U.S. foreign policy priority.
The Financial Action Ta sk
Force (FATF), an obscure interna-
tional watchdog, is meeting in
Paris this week and is expected to
announce whether Pakistan will
remain on the watch list Friday,
according to the organization’s
spokesman. If Pakistan were to be
blacklisted, the country’s financial
transactions would be subject to
greater scrutiny, a m ove that c ould
discourage investment and fur-
ther isolate its struggling econo-
my.
The blacklisting could also
complicate Pakistan’s relation-
ship with the United States. The
Trump administration has pres-
sured Pakistan to crack down on
terrorism within its borders as
U.S. negotiators work to finalize a
peace deal with the Ta liban in
neighboring Afghanistan that
would pave the way for the with-
drawal of thousands of American
troops.
“Pak Authorities have worked
very hard over the months & I feel
we have made significant prog-
ress” in combating money-laun-
dering and terrorism financing,
Hammad Azhar, Pakistan’s minis-
ter of economic affairs, said in a
statement posted to Twitter in late
January.
But some opposition lawmak-
ers say the moves are superficial,
and they accuse the United States
of overstating Pakistan’s progress
in return for the country’s role in
encouraging the Ta liban to strike a
peace d eal with Washington.
“Nothing has changed at all,”
said Mohsin Dawar, a Pakistani
lawmaker and outspoken opposi-
tion figure, referring to the prog-
ress cited by administration offi-
cials.
The last time the monitoring
body met, in October, the group
said it had “serious concerns with
the overall lack of progress by
Pakistan” t o stop terrorism financ-
ing. The FATF said Pakistan ad-
dressed only five of 27 measures
required to avoid being blacklist-
ed. The only other countries that
are blacklisted are North Korea
and Iran.

such as the conviction of Saeed constitute p rogress under the n ar- row parameters set by the FATF, but he said a key next step would be to watch for more successful prosecutions resulting in convic- tions “and then the government’s ability to stick with upholding the sentences.” Following the organization’s last meeting, the FATF directed Pakistani law enforcement agen- cies to investigate and prosecute “designated persons and entities, and those acting on behalf or at the direction of the designated persons or entities” involved in the financing of terrorism. The directive was one among a hand- ful of orders specifically related to money laundering and terrorism financing. But the United States wants Pakistan to do more. The Trump administration has t aken a particularly hard line on Pakistan’s al- leged support for terrorist organizations. As one U.S. official put it in August, the Trump administration wants to see Pakistan take “consistent and irreversible” s teps

against terrorism, according to a State Department readout of the briefing. In 2 018 the United States suspended military aid to Paki- stan in an attempt to force the country to eliminate militant safe havens. Arrests of prominent terrorists do not constitute “consistent and irreversible” s teps because o f Paki- stan’s h istory of later releasing the same individuals, according to an American official briefed on U.S. assessments of Pakistan’s fight against terrorism. The official spoke on t he c ondition of a nonym- ity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “I think what the U.S. is looking for is for Pakistan to not only arrest militants, arrest their leaders, put the leaders on trial, but also shut down the entire infra- structure of these financing networks,” said Michael Kugelman, a Pakistan expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. The United States wants to see Pakistan “create conditions,” Kugelman said, where militants can’t b e easily released after a rrest and organizations that were shut down can’t be easily replaced by another group operating under a new name. “FATF is not the body designed to fix these problems,” said Schwemlein. The international watchdog i s designed to verify reg- ulatory shifts and legal changes, not dismantle complex terrorist networks, he said. Schwemlein is now a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for Interna- tional Peace. Saeed, the h igh-profile terrorist convicted by Pakistan this month, lived in the country openly for years, despite the offer of $10 mil- lion from the United States for information leading to his arrest. He w as arrested in July, on the eve of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s v isit to the White House. Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said accusations that the country imprisons terrorists only when it is politically convenient and later allows them to escape are “unfounded, baseless and far from reality,” said Aisha Farooqui, a ministry spokeswoman. This month, Ehsanullah E hsan, a notorious Pakistani Taliban member w ith links to the a ttempt- ed assassination of education ac- tivist Malala Yousafzai, “escaped” Pakistani custody. Dawar, the opposition politi- cian, pointed to Ehsan’s case as an example of how ineffective the government’s response to terrorism i n Pakistan i s. “This was such a high-profile case, if [Ehsan] can escape with- out any hurdle, just imagine what it’s like for someone with a lower profile,” h e said. [email protected]

Pakistan hopes its steps to fight terrorism will keep it o≠ a global blacklist

Banaras KHan/agence France-Presse/getty Images ABOVE: Debris on Monday after a suicide blast in Quetta, Pakistan. LEFT: Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the accused mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. He was sentenced this month to 11 years in prison.

aamIr QUresHI/agence France-Presse/getty Images

BY LAURA REILEY

President Trump’s promise in
January that China would pur-
chase roughly $40 billion in U.S.
agriculture products this year
faced new questions on Thursday
when a top government econo-
mist suggested a much smaller
haul could occur, adding uncer-
tainty to a key part of a partial
trade deal.
The U.S. Department of Agri-
culture’s chief economist, Robert
Johansson, projected that agri-
cultural exports to China would
reach roughly $14 billion in the
year that ends Sept. 30, a $4
billion increase from one year
ago.
But that amount would still fall
far short of what White House
officials said would take place

based on the recently announced “Phase One” t rade deal with Chi- nese leaders. White House officials have said agricultural exports to China would be between $40 billion and $50 billion in each of the next two years. Last year, when he was promising the trade deal would lead to a huge increase in purchases, Trump told farmers to buy “more land” and “bigger tractors.” The comments were made at the USDA’s Agricultural Outlook Forum. At a news conference later at the event, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said that enforcing China’s purchase commitments in the trade deal re- mained a concern and that variables such as the coronavirus outbreak made predictions diffi- cult. The next World Agricultural

Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) projections will not in- clude “Phase One” China purchase commitments, Johansson has said. USDA officials said it couldn’t be clear how much U.S. farm product China will ultimately buy this year. Details about Chinese agricultural purchase commitments in “Phase One” were fairly specific: China was to ensure additional purchases of U.S. agriculture products by $32 billion over two years, $12.5 billion in 2020 over the 2017 baseline of $24 billion and $19.5 billion over that baseline in 2021. This would mean total agricultural and seafood exports to China in 2020 would be $36.5 billion and up to $43.5 billion in 2021.

“The question we get is why the numbers aren’t matching up,” J o- hansson said Thursday by phone. “When the secretary [Perdue] was asked this question, he said, ‘We’re not just taking the additional $30 billion and sticking it into a Chinese export number.’ ” Some of the discrepancy, he said, is the difference between a calendar year and a fiscal year — meaning October, November and December numbers were not in- cluded in the projection. “Does that mean we expect those three months to fill that gap?” Johansson asked. “Our analysts are looking at the market and looking at the books: What is China’s demand?... My job is to ask if it’s feasible that they meet these commitments.” There are dramatic variables

and big unknowns, such as record crop harvests in Brazil and the effects of the covid-19 virus. A devastating outbreak of African swine fever last year that killed more than a quarter of China’s total herd has meant American pork is poised to export a lot of product to meet demand. But the coronavirus outbreak could scut- tle that, Johansson said. “Coronavirus is reducing Quar- ter One economic growth,” he said. “Our assumption is that the outbreak is going to pass and their growth will respond in the second, third and fourth quar- ters.” Trump began imposing tariffs on Chinese imports because he said there was a major trade imbalance between the two countries, alleging that China needed

to import more U.S. products, particularly from farmers. China retaliated by raising tariffs on U.S. farm products, and many farmers said they were caught in the crossfire. Farm bankruptcies increased and commodity prices fell, making the pain even more acute. Trump authorized two large, multibillion-dollar bailouts for farmers in an effort to try to address concerns, but he also said the recent trade deal with China would move to dramatically im- prove their livelihoods. More broadly, Johansson said that total U.S. agricultural exports should reach $139.5 billion in 2020, up $4 billion from 2019, largely on the strength of trade agreements with Mexico, Canada and Japan. [email protected]

USDA: China might purchase much less U.S. farm product than expected

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The Washington Post - 17.02.2020

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