Published on, Sept. 26 -- September 26, 2025 1:52 AM

Pakistan's "Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement" with Saudi Arabia is more than a security story. It is a balance-of-payments story, a remittance story, a sovereign-risk story-and, potentially, a mining and energy story. If Islamabad plays it right, the pact can be monetised into predictable, programmatic inflows that de-risk the next few years of its IMF program. If it plays it wrong, Pakistan could swap short-term liquidity for long-term dependency and higher geopolitical risk premia.

The facts first. On 17 September 2025, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defence pact that commits each side to treat aggression against one as aggression against both-language that analysts imm...