Hours after India’s Ministry of External Affairs dismissed claims by US President Donald J Trump that a ceasefire between India and Pakistan was brokered with American involvement and hinged on trade negotiations, Trump on Tuesday doubled down on his assertions — including a dire warning that the world narrowly avoided “a bad nuclear war.”
Speaking at the US-Saudi Arabia Investment Forum, Trump insisted, “Just days ago, my administration successfully brokered a historic ceasefire to stop the escalating violence between India and Pakistan. And I used trade to a large extent to do it. I said, fellas, come on, let’s make a deal. Let’s do some trading. Let’s not trade nuclear missiles. Let’s trade the things that you make so beautifully.”
“Millions of people could have died from that conflict that started small and was getting bigger and bigger and bigger by the day,” he said, adding that the US had also been working relentlessly to “end the terrible bloodshed” between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump on India-Pakistan: “Maybe we could even get them together a little bit, Marco, where they go out and have a nice dinner together. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar)
He also praised the US lawmakers involved in the diplomatic effort. “I was very proud of Marco Rubio ( United States secretary of state) and all of the people that worked so hard. Marco, stand up. What a great job you did on that… JD Vance (US vice president), Marco, the whole group worked with you.”
The remarks followed a May 10 post on Truth Social, in which Trump announced that his administration had mediated an “immediate and full ceasefire” between the two South Asian rivals after a surge in tensions after India launched Operation Sindoor — a cross-border strike on terror targets inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) — in response to a terror attack in and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which claimed 26 civilian lives.
On Monday, Trump told reporters: “I said [to the Indian and Pakistani leaderships], let’s stop it. If you stop it, we’re doing trade. If you don’t stop it, we’re not going to do any trade.”
“I think it could have been a bad nuclear war. Millions of people could have been killed,” he had said.
India wasted little time pushing back on Trump’s assertions. At a media briefing in New , External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal reiterated India’s longstanding position that Jammu and Kashmir is a bilateral issue to be resolved between India and Pakistan alone.
“We have a long-standing national position that any issues pertaining to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have to be addressed by . That stated policy has not changed,” Jaiswal said.
He also disputed the role of trade in discussions between Indian and American leaders. “The issue of trade did not come up in any of these discussions,” he said. “Operation Sindoor was entirely in the conventional domain,” he added, rejecting Trump’s nuclear scenario as speculative. “As you know, India has a firm stance that it will not give in to nuclear blackmail or allow cross-border terrorism to be conducted invoking it.”
Jaiswal clarified that Operation Sindoor was aimed exclusively at “terrorist infrastructure operating out of Pakistan,” and that India had pre-briefed global partners accordingly. “If the Pakistani military stayed out, there would be no problem,” he said, adding that several foreign governments were informed that India’s actions would remain limited and proportionate.
