Trump Claims He Stopped a De-Escalating 'Nuclear War' Between India and Pakistan with Tariff Threats
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United States President Donald Trump has once again sparked a geopolitical debate by claiming that his direct diplomatic intervention prevented a full-scale nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Speaking to members of the press aboard Air Force One at RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom, Trump asserted that hostilities between the two nuclear-armed neighbours were on the verge of causing millions of casualties before he stepped in.
'Hostilities Were Going Nuclear': Trump Recalls Crisis Telemetry
Reflecting on the timeline of the confrontation, the US President described a highly volatile battlefield environment. "Think of it, India and Pakistan. That war was raging. They were a week into it. Eleven planes were shot down, and that war was going to go nuclear," Trump told reporters, emphasising the sheer scale of the threat.
Trump further claimed that his management of the crisis earned him immense gratitude from leadership in Islamabad. He stated that Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif personally praised his role, allegedly telling him that his swift actions saved between 30 and 50 million lives. "Well, guess what? Could have been a lot more than that," Trump added.
Leveraging Tariffs as a Tool for Global Conflict Resolution
Detailing the exact strategy he used to force a ceasefire, Trump explained that his intervention relied heavily on aggressive trade policy rather than traditional diplomacy. In a recent interview, he revealed that he placed immediate economic pressure on both New Delhi and Islamabad to freeze their military movements.
"I stopped eight wars because of tariffs—India, Pakistan... Five of the eight were stopped because of tariffs," Trump declared. "I said, if you keep fighting, I'm going to put a 200 per cent tariff on your country. Said the same thing to the other. I did it with India and with Pakistan."
During the same media interaction, Trump referenced Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who symbolically presented her physical Nobel Peace Prize medal to him at the White House earlier this year. Leveraging this gesture, Trump argued that his unique personality and self-proclaimed record of settling eight international conflicts—including the disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Rwanda and the DRC—make him uniquely qualified for global recognition. "I should have won that award more than anybody who ever received the Nobel Peace Prize because nobody settled wars," he asserted.
New Delhi Rejects American Claims, Points to Bilateral Ceasefire
The actual geopolitical crisis dates back to the tragic April 2024 Pahalgam terror attack, which claimed the lives of 26 individuals in Jammu and Kashmir. In direct retaliation, the Indian military executed high-precision cross-border airstrikes targeting terrorist infrastructure deep within Pakistan under the banner of Operation Sindoor.
Despite Trump's persistent narrative claiming credit for the subsequent de-escalation, the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi has consistently and firmly refuted any claims of American mediation. India has repeatedly stated that the operational ceasefire was negotiated directly and bilaterally between the respective Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs). India maintains its foundational diplomatic doctrine: all outstanding matters with Pakistan are strictly bilateral, and there is no room or requirement for third-party intervention.
