Since taking office, Donald Trump has pursued a series of natural resource deals with countries eager to get in his good graces. He said that Ukraine held up to $500bn of mineral wealth while the Democratic Republic of Congo dangled a lithium, cobalt and coltan agreement to draw in US support to end a Rwanda-backed separatist insurgency.
But the US president’s claim of “massive oil reserves” in cash-strapped Pakistan, which relies on imports for 80 per cent of its petroleum supply, was his boldest yet, puzzling industry figures, analysts and even officials in the South Asian country.
“Completely out of left field,” said an official at a Pakistani state-owned oil and gas company on the day Trump announced a trade deal with Islamabad, slashing tariffs on Pakistan by 10 percentage points, to 19 per cent.