US drone maker Powerus has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Pakistan Army that includes an initial order, its founders confirmed. The deal comes as Washington and Islamabad rebuild defense ties, and weeks before Powerus merges with a company partly owned by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.

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A memorandum of understanding signed in Islamabad this week handed a young American drone maker its first formal foothold inside the Pakistan Army. Powerus, a firm that sells aerial and maritime drones for military and industrial use, confirmed the agreement through co-founder Brett Velicovich, who told Reuters it included an initial drone-related order. He declined to describe the technology in detail, citing security sensitivities and said only that it fell within the category of unmanned aerial systems, and would not disclose the value of the order.

“Today we signed a very important MOU. As part of that MOU, we received an initial order for power systems,” said Brett Velicovich, Co-founder of Powerus, speaking in Islamabad.

Neither the signing nor the initial order had been reported before Wednesday. Pakistan's military confirmed that a Powerus delegation led by Velicovich had met Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, and it said the two sides discussed defense procurement, production, and long-term capacity building. The statement from the military stopped short of mentioning the memorandum itself and its media wing did not respond to a request for comment sent outside business hours.

Warming Ties Between Washington and Islamabad

After years of strain between Washington and Islamabad, ties have grown noticeably warmer, with President Donald Trump publicly praising the Pakistani army chief and Islamabad pursuing a run of economic, financial, and defense initiatives designed to pull the two countries closer. A drone deal with an American supplier comes since the relationship has been repaired and turned into realignment, giving Pakistan access to US-built unmanned systems at a moment when it is signaling openness to deeper cooperation and giving a US firm an early position in a market its rivals have yet to lock down.

A Young Company Chasing an Emerging Market

Andrew Fox, the company's Co-founder and Chief Executive, described the country's private defense sector as “emerging but still not mature,” a gap he argued leaves room for American firms to move faster than local competitors. Rather than casting the company purely as a vendor shipping finished hardware, its founders have framed the relationship as a two-way exchange of expertise, one that could eventually put manufacturing on Pakistani soil.

“The goal would be a joint technology relationship, pairing best-in-breed technology from the U.S. with best-in-breed technology from Pakistan,” Velicovich said, adding that Powerus was exploring ways to potentially build technology inside the country.

Ownership Under Scrutiny

Powerus is due to merge with Aureus Greenway Holdings, a publicly traded firm backed by two of President Trump's sons, with both sides expecting the transaction to close in early October. According to US regulatory filings, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump hold a stake in Aureus through an investment fund called American Ventures, which is expected to control a 9.9 percent beneficial ownership stake in the combined company once the merger is complete.

The company has pushed back firmly on any suggestion that its momentum is tied to that connection and Fox rejected the idea that Powerus had grown because of the Trump sons' involvement, saying contracts were won on merit and that the brothers had “no involvement on the business side” of the operation.

“Don has no involvement whatsoever in the management or operations of Powerus and plays absolutely no role in the procurement of contracts in the United States or abroad,” a spokesman for Donald Trump Jr. said, describing him as a passive investor with an indirect holding. “He had no prior knowledge of this deal and had no involvement of any kind in its negotiation, procurement or execution.”

The White House offered a similarly flat denial, with Anna Kelly, Special Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Press Secretary, stating that “there are no conflicts of interest.” Eric Trump could not immediately be reached.

For a company built on battlefield experience and racing to scale, the Pakistan deal is both a breakthrough abroad and a stress test of how far a defense startup can go before its proximity to the president's family becomes the story. Every contract Powerus signs from here will be scrutinized for what it says about access, influence, and who profits when the company succeeds.

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