■ The Mineral Deal, Fifteen New Provinces, and the Metropolises Pakistan Must Build ■
Natalie A. Baker, Chargé d’Affaires of the United States, spoke with a clarity that Pakistan has rarely heard from Washington in recent years. Her words, delivered on the Talha Ahad Podcast, deserve to be read carefully, not skimmed:
“Pakistan is blessed with a tremendous amount of critical minerals resources. Some estimates say up to 7 trillion dollars. It might be more than that…
“Right now, we do want to be preferred partners with the government of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan in helping to mine those resources — whether it’s copper, gold, other rare earth materials…
“When American companies come in, it’s not just extractive. We’re not just going to buy the minerals and leave. We’re not going to come in and bring thousands of our own workers here. What we do is we build the ecosystem around those industries.”
She went further. American technology would survey, assess, mine, and bring resources to the market. American companies would train Pakistani engineers, surveyors, and researchers. They would connect Pakistani institutions with American universities. They would invest in roads, highways, railways, and community facilities in mineral-rich regions, including Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In short:
Economic zones, skills for Pakistani youth, and real jobs.
This is not the language of a temporary buyer. It is the language of a long-term industrial partnership — or, at the very least, an opportunity to build one.
I welcome that opportunity. Strongly. Without apology.
Pakistan possesses enormous mineral potential, including the copper-gold resources of Reko Diq, alongside antimony, tungsten, rare earth elements, and other minerals essential to modern industry. Estimates of Pakistan’s total mineral wealth, including the frequently cited figure of seven trillion dollars, must be distinguished from commercially recoverable reserves. Geological promise alone does not guarantee national prosperity. It takes investment, technology, sound agreements, competent institutions, and an honest distribution of benefits.
For decades, much of this potential has remained unrealised while our youth queue for scarce jobs and our economy struggles under debt and stagnation. If American capital, technology, and training can help unlock this wealth, create skilled employment, and raise living standards, Pakistan should approach the opportunity with seriousness and confidence.
The alternative is to leave valuable resources underdeveloped while other nations write the rules of the new mineral century.
But there is a condition.
“BāBā-Tāl”, [the Bell-man], sat across from me, the steam rising slowly from his mug. He took a long sip, set the cup down with deliberate care, and looked straight into my eyes.
“Bacha!”
The single word carried the weight of decades.
“The US-Pak deal must add one non-negotiable clause: America will build new Metropolis cities from its share — one Metropolitan city for each of the fifteen new provinces.”
I stared at him, my eyes wide. The words escaped before I could stop them:
“بستی بسنا کھیل نہیں ہے! بستے بستے بستی ہے…”
[Building a settlement is not a game. Settlements are built, step by step, generation by generation.]
A slow smile spread across his face. He nodded as if the old Punjabi wisdom had pleased him.
“G, bacha. It is not the play of children. It takes decades for a village to become a town, a town to become a city, and a city to become a metropolis. I have been a living witness — from mud lanes to metalled roads, from kerosene lamps to high-tension wires, from the silence of fields to the roar of a living city. I have seen it with these eyes.”
He paused, took another sip, and continued with the quiet finality of a man who has measured time in decades, not headlines.
“What is necessary must be written into the agreement itself. Immediate reservation of land. Full city planning. And this work must begin side by side with the mineral digging — not after, not ‘in due course,’ not ‘subject to further study.’ Side by side. From day one.”
Then BāBā-Tāl leaned towards me and whispered:
“Bacha! You can hope for the best — turning hunger into a fully functioning society with this deal. But only if the pipelines are guarded fully against the leeches that suck.”
That is where the promise of mineral wealth meets the reality of Pakistan.
History forces us to keep our eyes open. I have written before of America’s record of strategic withdrawals and abandoned partners — Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the tragedy of East Pakistan, among other painful chapters in which Pakistanis have questioned the reliability of external alliances. Each case has its own history and political context. But the lesson for a country negotiating with a great power is straightforward: an American promise, like any foreign commitment, must be supported by durable mutual interests, enforceable obligations, and institutions that survive changes in political priorities.
That is not hostility. It is prudence.
Yet the greater and more immediate danger is not only external. It lies within our own system:
the entrenched networks that attach themselves to every major pipeline of foreign capital, technology, and public opportunity entering Pakistan.
These are the oligarchic leeches — what I have elsewhere described as the permanent class of commission agents,
political brokers, licence-fixers, and well-connected intermediaries who seek to convert national opportunity into private rent.
They do not necessarily dig the mines. They do not train the engineers. They do not build the factories or equip Pakistani youth with the skills of tomorrow. Their business is to position themselves as indispensable gatekeepers.
They seek advantageous joint-venture arrangements, exclusive licences, opaque consultancy contracts, inflated commissions, and political protection. The minerals leave the ground. The technology arrives. The jobs are announced. Yet the value can leak away before it reaches the national treasury, local communities, or the hands of ordinary Pakistanis.
This is the danger that must be confronted before the first contract is signed, not after the first scandal breaks.
The same networks may attempt to turn an American mining partnership into another private enrichment scheme. They may speak eloquently of facilitation and national development while pushing arrangements that privilege connected interests over public benefit.
The question is not whether every intermediary is corrupt. The question is whether the structure of the deal will allow private interests to capture benefits that should belong to the nation.
This is the real test of the partnership.
The Qur’an leaves no ambiguity about the moral responsibility attached to a trust.
Allah Almighty commands:
“O you who believe! Do not betray Allah and the Messenger, nor betray your trusts knowingly.”
— The Holy Qur’an, Surah Al-Anfal 8:27.
The warning is followed by a positive command that reaches directly into the conduct of public affairs:
“Indeed, Allah commands you to render trusts to whom they are due and when you judge between people to judge with justice.”
— The Holy Qur’an, Surah An-Nisa 4:58.
These are not verses to be displayed ceremonially while the substance of public responsibility is ignored. Their message reaches every person entrusted with authority over the resources, revenues, and future of a nation. The public office is an Amanah. Negotiating authority is an Amanah. The stewardship of mineral wealth is an Amanah.
National resources are not the private inheritance of those who happen to hold the keys to the treasury, the licence office, or the negotiating table.
The Holy Prophet Muhammad [Peace and blessings be upon him] likewise warned of the moral danger of betrayal:
“The signs of a hypocrite are three: Whenever he speaks, he tells a lie; whenever he promises, he breaks his promise; and whenever he is entrusted, he betrays his trust.”
— Sahih al-Bukhari 33; Sahih Muslim 59.
The application to public life is unmistakable. A promise made in the name of national development must not become a device for deception. A responsibility entrusted by the people must not be converted into private enrichment. The test of leadership is not merely what it announces but what it faithfully delivers.
This is why BāBā-Tāl’s proposal for fifteen new metropolitan cities deserves serious consideration.
■ NATIONAL PROPOSAL ■
Fifteen new provinces. Fifteen new metropolitan cities.
Let me make the distinction clear. This is a national proposal for public debate and lawful consideration, not an announcement that Pakistan has already decided to create fifteen new provinces, nor a claim that the United States has already agreed to finance or construct fifteen metropolitan cities.
BāBā-Tāl wants the idea to be considered as part of Pakistan’s national development vision and, where mutually agreed, as an explicit component of negotiations surrounding mineral investment.
If Pakistan lawfully establishes fifteen new provinces, one planned metropolitan city for each province should be seriously examined as a national development objective. If the country adopts a different provincial framework, the underlying principle must remain:
mineral-producing regions must not be left with depleted resources, damaged environments, temporary settlements, and unfulfilled promises
The proposed fifteen-province framework would itself require a transparent national process, including consideration of constitutional requirements, administrative viability, population distribution, local consent, fiscal arrangements, and the needs of existing communities. New provinces can not simply be declared into existence by an investment agreement.
Nor should an American mineral partnership be made to override Pakistan’s lawful institutions. The metropolitan proposal must be debated on its own national merits, while any financial or construction commitments accepted by the United States must be negotiated openly and recorded in enforceable terms.
But wherever new provincial arrangements are lawfully established, and wherever mineral development creates a sound economic foundation for new urban centres, planned metropolitan development should be considered from the outset.
The number fifteen belongs to BāBā-Tāl’s vision.
The principle is larger: mineral wealth must help build lasting communities, not merely generate export receipts.
This is not charity. It is a proposal for a development partnership in which Pakistan’s national priorities are clearly defined, and the responsibilities of each party are transparently negotiated.
If American companies expect a share in the value generated by Pakistan’s mineral resources, Pakistan should negotiate a corresponding share of long-term development for its people. The precise financial contribution, ownership structure, implementation schedule, and allocation of responsibilities would need to be agreed upon openly.
The principle, however, should be unmistakable: investment must leave behind more than holes in the ground.
It must leave behind human capacity, productive industries, public infrastructure, and communities able to sustain themselves long after the original extraction contracts expire.
An industrial ecosystem without a human ecosystem is incomplete.
Where will the engineers live? Where will the technicians raise their children? Where will teachers, doctors, researchers, skilled workers, and entrepreneurs establish their homes? Where will universities, hospitals, vocational institutes, laboratories, housing, public transport, and community facilities take root?
A mining project may create a temporary employment centre. A properly planned metropolis can create a permanent centre of economic and social life.
That is the distinction BāBā-Tāl wants Pakistan to understand.
If the metropolitan proposal is accepted in principle, its essential requirements must be included in the original agreement or in legally binding instruments agreed by the relevant parties. They must not be postponed to a future memorandum that may never materialise.
Land must be identified and reserved through lawful, transparent procedures. Master plans must be prepared with professional expertise, public consultation, environmental safeguards, and the necessary local and provincial approvals. Their contents should be publicly notified before commercial production begins, subject to the approvals and timelines required by law.
Core infrastructure — roads, water, power, housing, educational institutions, hospitals, and public transport — must have a funded and enforceable implementation schedule running alongside the mining programme.
BāBā-Tāl proposes a land-reservation deadline of ninety days from the agreement and the commencement of core construction in the same season as the first mining operations. These are his proposed benchmarks, not established contractual terms. Their feasibility would have to be tested against land ownership, environmental assessments, financing, engineering requirements, and lawful planning approvals.
But the purpose of his demand is clear: do not allow urban development to become a promise perpetually postponed.
The mining timetable and the human-development timetable must be connected from day one.
The cities themselves must not become monuments to another form of oligarchy. Public land must not be quietly transferred to connected developers. Housing must not be designed exclusively for senior executives and wealthy investors, while the workers who sustain the economy are pushed to the margins.
A metropolis must be a living city, not a collection of gated enclaves.
It must offer affordable housing, clean water, reliable electricity, sanitation, schools, universities, hospitals, vocational institutes, public spaces, and opportunities for small businesses. It must be planned for families, workers, students, and future generations. It must protect the environment and respect the communities whose land and resources make its existence possible.
If the cities are to be built from the partnership’s financial returns, the funding formula must be explicit. Pakistan’s share of mineral revenues, the American investor’s contractual share, public infrastructure commitments, and any agreed reinvestment obligations must be clearly distinguished.
No party should be permitted to describe an uncosted aspiration as a funded promise.
That is what serious negotiation looks like.
Natalie Baker spoke of American technology, training, universities, infrastructure, and an ecosystem that would extend beyond extraction.
BāBā-Tāl has completed the sentence in his own unmistakable way: those jobs and skills must live inside real communities, and those communities must have the infrastructure to endure.
But the leeches will have little enthusiasm for such an arrangement. Their advantage lies in vague promises of future development, endless delays, and the familiar phrase “phase two.” They benefit when resources begin moving while people remain scattered across neglected villages and temporary settlements.
A publicly accountable metropolitan development programme would make it harder to divert promised benefits into private estates, inflated contracts, and commission networks. It would not eliminate corruption by itself, but it could create visible milestones against which citizens, journalists, auditors, and elected representatives could measure performance.
Lord Acton, the British historian, offered a warning that remains relevant wherever power and wealth are concentrated without adequate accountability:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
— Lord Acton, letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 5 April 1887.
The lesson for Pakistan is not that every powerful individual or every investor is corrupt. It is that no arrangement should depend solely on the goodwill of those who control it. Public oversight, independent institutions, transparent rules, and enforceable obligations are necessary precisely because no individual or institution should be beyond scrutiny.
Therefore, the agreement must contain enforceable obligations, not decorative language.
First, the mineral partnership must publish its material contractual terms, including ownership arrangements, royalty structures, tax concessions, public liabilities, environmental obligations, and the division of financial risks. Commercial confidentiality must not become a blanket excuse for concealing the use of national resources.
Second, independent audits must be mandatory, with clear reporting requirements and safeguards against political capture. Every concession, subcontract, and major procurement decision should be subject to transparent rules.
Third, local employment and skills-transfer commitments must be measurable. Training targets, apprenticeship programmes, technical qualifications, and employment pathways for Pakistani engineers, surveyors, researchers, and skilled workers must be written into the agreement and monitored against deadlines.
Fourth, the economic zones must be real. Infrastructure must serve productive industry and local communities, not merely facilitate the rapid movement of minerals out of the country. Roads, railways, electricity, water systems, and communications networks should be planned around the long-term needs of both industry and the people who live beside it.
Fifth, communities in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa must receive a fair, visible, and accountable share of the benefits. Land acquisition, environmental protection, water use, compensation, local employment, and community participation must be addressed before grievances become another generation’s inheritance.
Sixth, if the parties accept BāBā-Tāl’s metropolitan proposal, its essential requirements must be included in the original agreement rather than postponed to a future memorandum that may never material The proposal must be costed, financed, and assessed against lawful planning requirements. Responsibilities must be allocated clearly, and progress must be publicly reported.
Seventh, the public must have access to meaningful information about the implementation of the partnership. Journalists, elected representatives, local communities, and independent auditors must be able to assess whether promised employment, infrastructure, training, environmental safeguards, and public benefits are actually being delivered.
These safeguards are not intended to obstruct foreign investment. They are intended to make it durable, credible, and beneficial to both parties.
The mineral wealth beneath Pakistan’s soil must be developed within a national framework of lawful stewardship and public accountability. Its development should strengthen the country, expand productive capacity, and improve the lives of the people whose future depends on the decisions being made today.
The question is not whether Pakistan should welcome foreign investment. It is whether Pakistan can negotiate an arrangement in which investment serves national development rather than allowing national development to become a slogan used to justify private gain.
America can bring capital, technology, expertise, and access to markets. Pakistan must bring sound institutions, competent negotiation, transparent regulation, and the resolve to protect its own interests.
Neither side should expect a successful partnership to rest on goodwill alone.
The geological opportunity is real. The technological possibilities are substantial. The need for employment, skills, and economic growth is urgent.
But no nation should surrender its judgement merely because a powerful partner offers an attractive opportunity. Nor should it reject a potentially beneficial partnership simply because history contains painful examples of broken expectations.
The answer is neither blind trust nor automatic suspicion. It is a carefully designed agreement, backed by enforceable obligations and public scrutiny.
Pakistan can accept the American offer with open arms.
But it must keep its eyes wide open.
The pipelines between Washington and Islamabad must be guarded with the same seriousness with which a nation guards its borders. Great powers reassess their interests. Governments change. Markets fluctuate. Investors recalculate. Net networks that profit from public weakness rarely abandon an opportunity voluntarily.
That is why Pakistan must negotiate not merely for the extraction of minerals but for the creation of a lasting economic foundation.
If the fifteen-province vision is lawfully adopted, the case for planning a metropolitan centre for each new province should be examined seriously. If the national framework takes a different shape, the principle must remain: mineral-producing regions should not be left with depleted resources, damaged environments, and unfulfilled promises.
Every project must be measured by what it contributes to Pakistan’s productive capacity, the skills of its people, the strength of its institutions, and the dignity of its communities.
And here, BāBā-Tāl’s demand returns to its moral centre. A nation can not claim to have succeeded merely because its exports rise or its treasury receives revenue. Success must also be visible in the lives of its people: in a young engineer who finds meaningful work, a family that gains access to decent housing, a child who attends a good school, and a community that receives clean water instead of another promise.
Let the mineral wealth create opportunities that outlive the investors, the governments, and the contracts that brought the first machines to the ground.
Let Pakistani youth become engineers, researchers, technicians, entrepreneurs, and builders of their own future. Let the regions that have waited for development become participants in national prosperity rather than spectators watching their resources leave by road and rail.
And let no intermediary be permitted to confuse a commission with a contribution, a private estate with a public benefit, or a press conference with progress.
The warning is not against business. It is against a system in which those who create little can capture much, while those whose resources and labour sustain the economy receive too little.
That is the difference between an extractive arrangement and a genuine partnership.
BāBā-Tāl finished his tea, looked at me once more, and said nothing further.
The silence itself was the demand.
As I watched the steam fade above his empty mug, four lines formed in my mind:
Beneath the soil, a nation’s wealth lies bound,
Yet promises are dust if trust is drowned;
Let skill and hope give every child a start,
And let no leech drain what the people found.
POETEARS [ Coined by S. T. Hejazi – where poetry becomes tears and tears become poetry]
USA can help build Pakistan’s mineral future.
Pakistan must ensure that the future is not quietly drained by those who have always sought to profit from draining it.
The offer is an opportunity. The terms must be negotiated. The safeguards must be enforced. And the benefits must reach the people.
Fifteen provinces, if lawfully established. Fifteen metropolitan cities, if the vision is adopted and made viable. Land reserved through lawful procedures. Planning and construction proceeding alongside mineral development.
Not minerals alone. Not promises alone. Not wealth captured by a privileged few.
A partnership that builds.
A nation that benefits.
And a future that belongs to the people of Pakistan.
The offer may be on the table.
The eyes must remain wide open.
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