WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said that seven jets shot down during Pakistan-India conflict in May. He took credit for preventing what he described as a potential nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan earlier this year.
Speaking at a White House press briefing, Trump said the situation in South Asia was “raging” when fighter jets were shot down during the brief war in May.
“The war with India and Pakistan was the next level that was going to be a nuclear war… They already shot down seven jets,” he told reporters. “I said, ‘You want to trade? We are not doing any trade or anything with you if you keep fighting, you’ve got 24 hours to settle it’. They said, ‘Well, there’s no more war going on’.”
Trump claimed that his use of tariffs and trade pressure was decisive. “I had tariffs and trade, and I was able to say, ‘If you go fight and want to kill everybody, that is okay, but I am going to charge you each a 100% tariff when you trade with us’. They all gave up,” he said.
The president has repeatedly said that he was responsible for brokering a ceasefire on May 10, which Washington announced after what he called “a long night” of talks. Since then, he has claimed dozens of times that he “helped settle” the tensions.
In June, an Indian defence official admitted that the country’s air force “lost some aircraft” on the night of May 7, after launching strikes on civilian sites in Pakistan during the four-day conflict. Captain Shiv Kumar, India’s defence attaché, made the acknowledgement at a seminar in Indonesia, Indian media reported.
