NEW YORK \ WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump repeated the claim that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan last year, which he said could have turned nuclear, through tariffs.
"I settled eight wars. Of the eight wars, at least six were settled because of tariffs. In other words, I said, ‘if you don't settle this war, I'm going to charge you tariffs, because I don't want to see people getting killed,” Trump said in an interview to Fox Business Tuesday.
"And they said, ‘Well, what does this have to do?’ I said, ‘you're going to be charged’. Like India and Pakistan. It would have been a nuclear war, in my opinion. They were really going at it, 10 planes were shot down. They were going at it,” Trump said.
He added that the Prime Minister of Pakistan said, ‘President Trump saved at least 10 million lives when he got us to stop fighting’. Because they were going to go nuclear, (in) my opinion. Without tariffs, that wouldn't happen,” Trump said.
Trump has claimed credit for stopping the India-Pakistan conflict for more that 80 times since May 10 last year, when he announced on social media that the two neighbours had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after talks mediated by Washington.
India has consistently denied any third-party intervention.
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.