More Than Meets The Eye? Trump Claims Credit for Defusing India-Pakistan Standoff Again

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday once again claimed he played a decisive role in preventing a potential military conflict between India and Pakistan. He asserted that he used trade leverage to force both sides to de-escalate.

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Speaking at a public event during the ongoing NATO Summit, Trump said: "The most important of all — India and Pakistan — I ended that with a series of phone calls on trade. I said if you're going to go fighting each other, we're not doing any trade deal. The General from Pakistan was in my office last week. Prime Minister Modi is a great friend of mine. I got them to reason... We stopped the nuclear war."

Trump’s statement comes against the backdrop of heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, which killed 26 civilians, including several tourists. 

In response, India launched Operation Sindoor, a series of precision strikes on terror camps across the Line of Control, targeting militant infrastructure inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

In a conversation earlier this month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made it clear to Trump that India neither sought nor accepted foreign mediation on matters of national security. 

The two leaders spoke by phone after Trump’s early departure from the G7 summit in Canada forced a scheduled bilateral meeting to be cancelled.

According to Indian sources, Modi categorically stated that India’s military actions were deliberate and non-escalatory, focused solely on counterterrorism. 

He firmly dismissed any suggestion that U.S. trade negotiations were linked to the crisis, emphasizing that the limited ceasefire that followed was coordinated directly between Indian and Pakistani military officials.

India has repeatedly maintained that any future aggression from Pakistan would invite a decisive and stronger Indian response. Operation Sindoor remains active, with Indian forces continuing counterterrorism operations.

Trump’s latest remarks mark yet another occasion where Washington has sought to project its role in South Asia's complex security dynamics. 

This is a narrative New Delhi has consistently resisted. India asserts that India-Pakistan issues remain bilateral.