As multinationals stampede for the exits, Pakistan has discovered it can’t sell itself as a market anymore. Only its soil is worth buying, and Trump just became the biggest landlord of all.
Pakistan is for sale, but nobody wants what it’s offering. Procter & Gamble has shut its doors after three decades. Microsoft closed after 25 years. Shell sold out. Telenor, Uber, Careem and pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer, Bayer and Sanofi have all walked away. The exodus is unprecedented, and the message is brutal: Pakistan is not worth the trouble.
Yet whilst multinationals flee the collapsing market, Pakistan is hawking its land like a desperate landlord. Over 2,000 acres of Balochistan, including Gwadar Port, have been leased to China for more than 40 years under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor deal. Tax exemptions and operational control have been handed over wholesale. Sovereignty traded for survival.
Now Donald Trump has entered the game. In 2025, Pakistan courted Trump with samples of rare earth minerals from Balochistan. A 500 million dollar memorandum was signed between Pakistan’s military controlled Frontier Works Organisation and Missouri based US Strategic Metals. Trump walked in with a pen, and Pakistan handed him the keys to its mineral wealth. He has outplayed China, becoming the biggest land grabber of them all.
The reasons for the corporate exodus are chronic. Political instability rewrites the rulebook with every government change. Currency controls trap profits in depreciating rupees. Thirty different corporate taxes create bureaucratic nightmares. Energy crises, security risks and infrastructure decay pile on the misery. But the killer blow is shrinking consumer demand. With 42 per cent of the population below the poverty line, Pakistan has become a market that simply cannot consume.
Compare this to the neighbours. Vietnam attracts 23 billion dollars in foreign direct investment. India pulls in 70 billion. Bangladesh secures 3.4 billion. Pakistan manages a humiliating 683 million dollars. With 216 million people, it should be an investment magnet. Instead, it’s a cautionary tale.
