What did Zia Ul-Haq call "peanuts"?

Short answer

The $400 million US aid package that President Carter offered Pakistan to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: $200 million in military equipment on credit and $200 million in economic aid spread over 18 months. Zia dismissed it as "peanuts."

Published: November 5, 2026 · Updated: November 5, 2026 · Edited by Above Ten Thousand · Editorial policy

General Muhammad Zia Ul HaqPakistan Army (CC BY SA), vía commons

Carter's offer

Pakistan officially rejected the $400 million aid package that the United States had offered to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Proposed by President Carter, it consisted of $200 million in military equipment on credit and another $200 million in economic aid, spread over 18 months. Carter also offered to reinforce the security commitment set out in the 1959 US-Pakistani pact.

"Peanuts"

At the time, Pakistan's president, Muhammad Zia al-Haq, dismissed the offer as "peanuts."

Two billion dollars and an eye on the Afghan border

With Soviet forces consolidating their positions in Afghanistan, the Carter administration faced the troubling problem of getting enough military aid to General Zia ul-Haq's forces in neighboring Pakistan. According to sources close to his thinking, Zia and his advisers were at the time seeking as much as $2 billion to completely rebuild Pakistan's armed forces and reorient them from their old enemy, India, toward defending the borders with Afghanistan. Up to that point, only Saudi Arabia had signaled it might contribute $700 to $800 million.