Watch: Trump confuses India with Iran while claiming tariffs averted nuclear war with Pakistan

US President Donald Trump appeared to mix up India with Iran while repeating his claim that tariffs had prevented a potential nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan. The president has long boasted that his trade policies helped end “five or six” of the “eight wars” he says he halted during his tenure.

Asked whether the United States was heading into a protracted trade war with China, Trump launched into a wide-ranging defence of his tariff policy. Speaking to reporters at the White House, he said: “We have a 100 per cent tariff. If we didn’t have tariffs, we would be exposed as being a nothing. We would have no defence. They’ve used tariffs on us, but we’ve never had anybody sitting in that chair who felt the need to do it.”

Trump claimed that tariffs had been responsible for keeping peace globally, but in recounting an episode involving Pakistan, he appeared to confuse it with Iran. “As an example, if you look at Pakistan and Iran,” he said. “I told them I was negotiating a trade deal with Iran, and Pakistan was going to be in line. Because of tariffs, they all wanted to negotiate much differently. Then I heard they were shooting at each other, and I said, ‘Are you guys going to go to war? Two nuclear powers we are thinking about.’”

He added that he warned both sides that he would impose a “200 per cent tariff” and ban them from conducting business with the United States if hostilities continued. “Within 24 hours, the war ended. That would have been a nuclear war,” he claimed.

US President Donald Trump reiterated that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had personally thanked him for preventing a nuclear conflict. “The Prime Minister of Pakistan got up the other day, said so beautifully, he says, ‘You saved millions of lives,’” Trump said. “He told that to a group of people right in this office. He said, the President saved millions of lives.”