Trump repeats India-Pakistan ceasefire claims, now says '10 planes were shot down'

US President Donald Trump

• Trump claims he stopped a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan in 2025
• He says tariffs helped end hostilities and claims 10 jets were shot down
• India denies third-party mediation and disputes Trump's varying figures

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US President Donald Trump on Tuesday yet again patted his back over "stopping eight wars" since assuming presidency, including a potential "nuclear conflict" between India and Pakistan. This time, the president claimed that as many as "10 jets were shot down" during the India-Pakistan hostilities, a figure that keeps changing each time Trump recalls the events of May 2025.

"I settled eight wars. Of the eight, at least six were settled because of tariffs. In other words, I said if you don't settle these wars I am going to charge you tariffs, because I don't want people getting killed," Trump said in an interview to Fox, reiterating how he allegedly used tariffs to strong-arm countries into ending wars.

Speaking about the India-Pakistan conflict, Trump said that a nuclear war could have broken out had he not intervened. "Like India and Pakistan — it would have been a nuclear war in my opinion. They were really going at it," he said. “You know, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said, ‘President Trump has saved at least 10 million lives ... he got us to stop firing.’"

The US President added that as many as “10 planes were shot down" during the conflict, saying that he used trade as a tool to halt the fighting. “Without tariffs, that would not have happened," he said.

India has categorically said that the May ceasefire between India and Pakistan was a result of direct talks between the DGMOs of both the sides and rejected any third-party mediation. PM Modi said this to Trump himself during a phone call in June last year.

However, the US President has repeated claims that he stopped a potential nuclear conflict multiple times over the last year. Notably, his statements have been inconsistent, particularly regarding the number of planes he says were shot down, with the figures varying across different remarks.

For instance, in July 2025, Trump claimed that "five jets were shot down" during the conflict. By September-October, he said that "seven brand-new beautiful planes" were shot down. In November, it became "eight planes", sometimes phrased as seven down and one badly damaged. In his latest remarks, Trump claimed that 10 planes were shot down.

While India has acknowledged suffering some losses during the conflict, it has not disclosed whether it lost any aircraft — or, if so, how many — during Operation Sindoor.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 last year, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.