‘Peacekeeper because of tariffs’: Trump repeats claim he stopped India-Pakistan war

Trump’s latest remarks have once again put the spotlight on his repeated and unsubstantiated claims of having mediated between New Delhi and Islamabad.

US President Donald Trump has once again claimed that his trade policies helped prevent a war between India and Pakistan following Operation Sindoor, reviving a claim that New Delhi has consistently rejected.

Speaking at an event on Monday, Trump said his strategic use of tariffs and trade diplomacy has helped the U.S. “end seven wars,” including tensions between India and Pakistan.

“We’re a rich country again, we’re a powerful country because, you know, I’ve ended seven wars, at least half of them were because of my ability at trade and because of tariffs,” Trump said.

“If I didn’t have the power of tariffs, you would have at least four of the seven wars raging. If you look at India and Pakistan, they were ready to go at it. Seven planes were shot down... I don’t want to say exactly what I said, but what I said was very effective. Not only did we make hundreds of billions of dollars, but we’re a peacekeeper because of tariffs,” he remarked.

Trump’s latest remarks have once again put the spotlight on his repeated and unsubstantiated claims of having mediated between New Delhi and Islamabad. The MEA has, on multiple occasions, dismissed similar assertions, reaffirming that all issues between India and Pakistan are bilateral and that “there is no role for any third party.”

During his address, Trump also referred to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s upcoming visit to Washington, claiming that the discussion would likely revolve around trade.

“He’s probably coming to talk about tariffs because a lot of companies are leaving Canada, Mexico, and China to come into the US. Nobody’s seen anything like it,” he said.

Notably, this is not the first time Trump has made such claims.

On September 21, while speaking at the American Cornerstone Institute Founder’s Dinner, he had stated that he should be honoured with a Nobel Prize for “ending seven wars.”

“We are forging peace agreements and stopping wars. So we stopped wars between India and Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia,” he said. “Think of India and Pakistan. And you know how I stopped that with trade. They want to trade. And I have great respect for both leaders.”

He also went on to list several other conflicts he claimed to have influenced, including those between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Kosovo and Serbia, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Rwanda and the Congo. “Sixty percent of them were stopped because of trade,” Trump said.

However, no evidence supports his claims of intervention in the India-Pakistan crisis.

New Delhi has repeatedly emphasised that peace and stability in South Asia depend on Pakistan ending cross-border terrorism and that any dialogue must be conducted directly between the two nations without outside involvement.