The Center for US-Pakistan Affairs is an independent action tank examining the security, economic, and diplomatic ties between the two countries, and the wider currents of great-power competition that increasingly shape them.
CUPA exists to identify where American and Pakistani interests genuinely overlap, and to build the research, relationships, and institutional habits that let both countries act on that overlap rather than talk past it. Security cooperation, trade and investment, energy, health, and migration are treated as one connected relationship rather than isolated files. The Centre works to promote sustained bilateral cooperation between the two countries, translating research into recommendations that officials, investors, and civil society on both sides can actually use.
Pakistan is the corpus callosum of the world. It sits at the junction where East meets West, joining two hemispheres of interest, trade, and security the way that structure joins the two hemispheres of the brain. A relationship this consequential cannot be managed by instinct alone. It has to be studied, understood, and deliberately connected. Shabnam Yousaf, Founder & Director
Where the relationship is tested in practice, not just in communiqués.
Analysis of bilateral trade flows, investment protection, and the commercial opportunities that connect the two economies in practice.
Research on the energy corridors, power infrastructure, and resource partnerships that underpin long-term economic cooperation between the two countries.
Research and field programs addressing public health capacity, health system resilience, and health security cooperation between the United States and Pakistan.
Research and direct field programs addressing human trafficking, migrant smuggling, and safe migration pathways affecting both countries.
Shabnam Yousaf and Dr. Sajid · Pakistan Journal of American Studies
Argues that US-China competition over rare-earth processing has structurally shifted the US-Pakistan relationship from aid toward trade, and traces the sequence of steps that led to the September 2025 memorandum of understanding between Pakistan's Frontier Works Organization and US Strategic Metals.
View publication ↗Shabnam Yousaf · Proceedings of the 3rd International Academic Conference on Research in Social Sciences, Berlin
Traces how Halloween travelled from the Celtic festival of Samhain, carried to America by Irish migrants in the mid-19th century, to the hybrid consumer celebration it is today, drawing on Marvin Harris's cultural materialism to show how its myths are passed on through enculturation and turned into commerce.
View publication ↗For research partnerships, media inquiries, or speaking engagements, reach the Centre directly.
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