US President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated that he was the one who defused the tensions between India and Pakistan, stating that he prevented a nuclear war by ordering his officials to suspend all trade agreements with the two countries.
We did some tremendous work. India and Pakistan. That was going to be possibly nuclear. We did that. We did a tremendous amount of work. I don't know if there's ever been a president that's done much more,"
Trump said to reporters at the White House, after a series of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, including one major ruling limiting the authority of lower courts in cases involving national injunctions against birthright citizenship.
Repeating an assertion he has made several times, Trump stated that he stepped into the situation at a time of heightened tensions between the South Asian neighbors by threatening to revoke trade privileges.
"Serbia, Kosovo is going to go at it, going to be a big war. I said, 'you go at it, there's no trade with the United States. That's what happened with India and Pakistan. I was negotiating with both of them and I said to (Treasury Secretary) Scott (Bessent), I said to (Commerce Secretary) Howard (Lutnick), cancel all deals with India and Pakistan. They're not trading with us because they're in a war," Trump said.
He continued to explain that the nations responded immediately. "They called back. 'What do we do?' I said, 'Listen, you want to engage in trade with the United States. That's fantastic, but you want to go ahead and start using nuclear weapons on one another. We're not going to let that happen.' And they both concurred, both have wonderful leaders. They both concurred not to do it. So so we did a lot," he continued.
Trump also indicated that his government was on the verge of opening wider access to Indian markets. "Some of the larger countries, India, I think we're going to come to a deal where we have the right to go in and trade. It's restricted now. You can't walk in there. You can't even think about it.". We're hoping to get a complete trade barrier reduction, which is unimaginable and I'm not sure that's going to occur, but as of now we've agreed to open up India and trade.
He also said that things were moving along with China. "We're going to be trading in China. That's going to come a little bit down the road, but we're going to be trading in China.". We have tremendous things working and we're getting along with nations, but some will be let down. Because they'll have to pay tariffs, and we've already taken in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, no inflation," Trump said.
India-Pakistan conflict eased on May 10, after four days of intense cross-border attacks using drones and missiles. Both nations agreed to a ceasefire.
Even though Trump has taken several times credit for assisting in reducing the standoff, India has rejected the claim each time. Indian authorities affirm that the ceasefire happened because of direct military-level negotiations between the two countries.
The development came following a conversation between India's and Pakistan's Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs), Indian sources said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also sought to make the point during a 35-minute telephone call to Trump last week that India will not accept third-party mediation, and that the proposal for ceasefire talks was made by Pakistan.
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