Washington: Former US President Donald Trump has once again reiterated his claim that tariffs played a decisive role in preventing a “nuclear war” between India and Pakistan during the May 2025 escalation, asserting that his threat to cut off US trade access forced both nations to de-escalate.
In an interview with CBS News’s 60 Minutes, Trump said that India and Pakistan were “on the brink of nuclear conflict” and credited his tariff-driven diplomacy for compelling the two countries to negotiate.
“It did work with India, it did work with Pakistan, and it did work with 60 per cent of those countries,” Trump said. “If it wasn’t for tariffs and trade, I wouldn’t have been able to make those deals. India does a lot of business with us — they were going to have a nuclear war with Pakistan. I told both, ‘If you don’t make a deal fast, you’re not doing any business with the United States.’ They worked it out and stopped the war.”
Trump’s comments refer to the May 2025 tensions that followed India’s Operation Sindoor — a series of precision strikes on nine terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). The operation was launched in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 26 civilians.
The former president has repeatedly claimed credit for mediating the crisis, arguing that the US used trade and tariffs as leverage to prevent escalation.
However, India has firmly rejected Trump’s claims, maintaining that the ceasefire was achieved through bilateral communication between the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs), without any third-party mediation. New Delhi has consistently reiterated that all issues with Pakistan — including those related to Jammu and Kashmir — must be resolved bilaterally.
During the interview, Trump also touted his self-proclaimed success in resolving several other international disputes, listing conflicts such as Cambodia–Thailand, Kosovo–Serbia, Congo–Rwanda, Egypt–Ethiopia, Armenia–Azerbaijan, and Israel–Hamas.
“I brought a little list of these wars,” he said. “Pakistan–India — that was going to be a big one; they shot down seven planes. Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia — all of them were ready to go. But we stopped them because of economic pressure and negotiations.”
Trump’s remarks have once again drawn attention to his controversial claims of personally mediating global conflicts through what he calls “the power of trade.”
