Pakistan's crypto-to-diplomacy pact: WLF deal, then a US-brokered hotel and mine

In January 2026, WLF CEO Zach Witkoff was received in Islamabad - flanked by Pakistan's prime minister and army chief - to sign a stablecoin/USD1 cross-border-payments agreement with finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, treated by Pakistan as a near-state visit. Pakistan publicized that WLF is 'backed by the Trump family' and that Trump had 'personally endorsed' it, and separately nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A month later, Zach's father - Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East special envoy - negotiated an unusual US-Pakistan MOU (signed by GSA Administrator Edward Forst and Aurangzeb) to jointly redevelop the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, a ~$1 billion asset owned by Pakistan's state airline PIA. Observers flagged the oddity of the GSA and a presidential envoy brokering a deal on a foreign-state-owned private hotel in which the US government has no interest - with Witkoff, a career NYC developer, positioned near post-diplomacy real estate. In return for its courtship, Pakistan secured a US commitment to invest $1.3 billion in its Reko Diq copper-and-gold mine.

The sequence - Nobel nomination, family crypto pact, then favorable US-brokered deals - is the clearest single case of a foreign government using the family's private ventures as a diplomatic on-ramp. Pakistan Crypto Council head Bilal Bin Saqib told Bloomberg in March 2026 that the crypto push had opened doors and rebuilt trust with Washington.

Documented

Legal but conflicted; alleged access-for-favor (unproven)

Roosevelt Hotel (~$1B est. Manhattan asset, Pakistan-state-owned via PIA); $1.3B US commitment to Pakistan's Reko Diq mine; WLF/USD1 cross-border-payments MOU

WLF LOI 2026-01; Roosevelt Hotel MOU 2026-02-20; Reko Diq $1.3B commitment 2026-03