Trump says he stopped India, Pakistan 'nuclear war' using trade threat; New Delhi trashes claim

New Delhi: The United States stopped a “bad nuclear war” between India and Pakistan by threatening to stop trade with both nations, President Donald Trump said in Washington, DC, on Monday.

A source in New Delhi, however, contradicted Trump’s claim and made it clear that the US officials never referred to trade while speaking to the top brass of the Government of India during the four-day-long conflict with Pakistan last week.

He made the comment while speaking to journalists in the White House just a short while before Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed in New Delhi that no “nuclear blackmail” would henceforth thwart India’s fight against cross-border terrorism being promoted by Pakistan.

“On Saturday, my administration helped broker an immediate ceasefire – I think a permanent one – between India and Pakistan, the countries having a lot of nuclear weapons,” Trump said in the White House, even as New Delhi rejected his claim that Washington, DC, mediated between the two South Asian nations and helped them clinch a 'ceasefire' deal.

“We stopped a nuclear conflict. I think it could have been a bad nuclear war; millions of people could have been killed. So, I’m very proud of that," Trump said.

This was the first time the US president specifically referred to the possibility of the cross-border military offensive and the counter-offensive between India and Pakistan last week escalating to a “nuclear war”. He had earlier stated that the conflict could have killed “millions of good and innocent people”.

His comment indicated that it was the fear of a nuclear conflict in South Asia that prompted the US to step up its efforts to make India and Pakistan stop the cross-border military actions.

Citing the “surgical strikes” by the Indian Army on the terrorist camps in the parts of Kashmir occupied by Pakistan in September 2016, and the bombing by the Indian Air Force on similar camps at Balakot deep inside Pakistan in February 2019, Modi had said in April, 2019, that his government in New Delhi had refused to get cowered by Islamabad’s nuclear blackmail and ordered the military actions in response to cross-border terrorism.

But, six years later, Islamabad could again use the threat of using nuclear weapons to persuade the Trump administration to convince New Delhi to agree on a mutual understanding to halt cross-border military actions.

“We helped a lot, and we also helped with trade. I said: Come on, we're going to do a lot of trade with you (India and Pakistan), guys. Let's stop it, 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. People have never really used trade the way I used it. By that, I can tell you, and all of a sudden, they said. I think we're gonna stop, and they have,” Trump said in Washington, DC, on Monday.

The source in New Delhi, however, said that after India launched Operation Sindoor early on May 7 targeting terrorist camps in Pakistan and Kashmir areas illegally occupied by Pakistan, and then resisted and retaliated against the military offensives by Pakistan, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had phone calls with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Secretary of State S Jaishankar, while the prime minister received a call from US Vice President J D Vance on May 10. “There was no reference to trade in any of these discussions,” said the source in New Delhi, contradicting the US president’s claim.

New Delhi earlier subtly rejected the US claim about mediating between the South Asian nations, stating that the Director General of Military Operations of India had received a call from his counterpart in Pakistan on Saturday, and the two sides had agreed to an “understanding” to stop the cross-border military actions.

Trump’s and his administration’s public claims about brokering the ‘ceasefire’ and his promise to help resolve the dispute over Kashmir contradicted New Delhi’s long-held position that the 1972 Simla Agreement between India and Pakistan and the 1999 Lahore Declaration had left no scope for any third party to play any role in resolving the issues between the two neighbours.

During Trump’s first tenure in the Oval Office, New Delhi had rejected his offer to mediate between India and China. He had made the offer after the violent face-off between the soldiers of the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army at Galwan Valley on June 15, 2020.