The president of the United States stated that he had warned of imposing 350% tariffs on India and Pakistan to deter them from the edge of nuclear conflict.
President Donald Trump has stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi told him India is “not going to go to war” with Pakistan amid the military tensions between the two South Asian countries from May 7 to 10.
The president of the United States stated that he had warned of imposing 350% tariffs on India and Pakistan to deter them from the edge of nuclear conflict. He mentioned that he acted to stop “nuclear dust” from “drifting over Los Angeles.”
Trump restated his assertion regarding facilitating the May 10 ceasefire between India and Pakistan during his speech at the US-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
Despite ignoring New Delhi’s refutations and consistently restating the assertion since May 10, this was the first occasion he cited Modi as saying over the phone that India would not engage in war with Pakistan.
This marked the initial occasion when the 47th American president asserted that he had stepped in and persuaded the two South Asian neighbors to reach a ceasefire, preventing them from deploying nuclear weapons against one another and protecting the US from nuclear fallout.
“..I’m good at settling disputes, and I’ve always been. I’ve done very well with that over the years, even before this. I was talking about the different wars… India, Pakistan… they were going to go at it, nuclear weapons,” said the US president.
Following the attack by terrorists from Pakistan and its illegally occupied regions, which resulted in the deaths of 26 individuals, mainly tourists at Baisaran in Pahalgam, India commenced ‘Operation Sindoor’ on the morning of May 7.
This operation aimed at striking the training facilities of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) along the Line of Control (LoC) and the uncontested segment of its border with Pakistan.
Pakistan retaliated by attacking military bases and the civilian people in India. The cross-border conflict concluded with a ceasefire on May 10.
Trump stated that he had informed New Delhi and Islamabad that they could persist in their conflict, but he would impose a 350% tariff on both countries, making it challenging for them to trade with the US.
He said that both India and Pakistan had told him not to impose tariffs on them, but he had replied: “I’m going to do it. Come back to me and I’ll take it down. But I’m not going to have you guys shooting nuclear weapons at each other, killing millions of people and having the nuclear dust floating over Los Angeles. I’m not going to do it”.
He mentioned that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had contacted him to express gratitude, in the presence of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, for preserving millions of lives by facilitating the ceasefire.
He also claimed that he had “got a call from Prime Minister Modi saying, ‘we’re done.” He then inquired of Modi: “You’ve finished with what?” Trump asserted that Modi responded: “We’re not going to engage in war.”
He had subsequently expressed gratitude to Modi and remarked, “Let’s strike a deal,” as per the details of the communications between Washington D.C. and New Delhi shared by the US president.
New Delhi has consistently denied the US assertion regarding its role in mediating the ceasefire that concluded the four-day military offensive and counter-offensive between India and Pakistan over the last three months. Modi personally rejected the assertion during a phone conversation with Trump on June 17 and also in a Lok Sabha debate on July 29.
