US President Donald Trump has once again claimed that his administration played a key role in preventing a major war between India and Pakistan during a period of high tension in 2025. He said the US stepped in diplomatically and used trade as a tool to bring both nuclear-armed countries back from the brink.

“We stopped a lot of wars. And these were serious – India and Pakistan, that was going on. Planes were being shot out of there. I think five jets were shot down, actually,” Trump said, while highlighting his foreign policy achievements.

Trump was referring to the Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 people and triggered a military standoff. 

In response to the attack, India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7th, carrying out airstrikes on nine terror infrastructures sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Pakistan also tried to retaliate with drone and missile attacks on Indian cities, but India’s defence system successfully intercepted them. 

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‘It was getting bigger and bigger’, says Trump

Describing the situation as extremely dangerous, Trump said, “These are two serious nuclear countries and they were hitting each other… and it was getting bigger and bigger.” He claimed that his administration intervened to de-escalate the conflict using economic pressure.

“We said, you guys want to make a trade deal. We’re not making a trade deal if you’re going to be throwing around weapons and maybe nuclear weapons,” he said. “Both very powerful nuclear states.”

Trade talks used as diplomatic pressure

Trump has repeatedly said that without US intervention, the conflict could have escalated into nuclear war. “India, by the way, Pakistan would have been a nuclear war within another week, the way that was going. That was going very badly, and we did that through trade,” he said.

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“We’ve been very successful in settling wars,” he added, also mentioning the long-running conflict between Rwanda and the Congo as another example.