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Trump makes 'peacekeeper cause of tariffs' pitch ahead of Nobel announcement
Trump had earlier said he ended a potential war between India and Pakistan after he threatened to snap trade ties.
US President Donald Trump reiterated the claim that his intervention stopped India and Pakistan from going into a full-fledged war early this year. The US President pegged tariffs as the reason for bringing the two nuclear-armed neighbours to agree on a truce a few months earlier.
“If I didn't have the power of tariffs, you would have at least four of the seven wars raging... If you look at India and Pakistan, they were ready to go at it. Seven planes were shot down,” he said, adding that he used tariffs to stop wars.
He also said that the tariffs not only helped the US make monetary gains, but also maintain peace.
“I don't want to say exactly what I said, but what I said was very effective... Not only did we make hundreds of billions of dollars, but we're a peacekeeper because of tariffs,” he said from the White House while claiming a to have a role in India-Pakistan ceasefire.
The border nations saw a military conflict back in May after India launched Operation Sindoor to target terror bases in Pakistan, a move to avenge the killing of 26 civilians in the Pahalgam terror attack. A ceasefire was announced on May 10, a decision India asserts was taken bilaterally, despite Trump's repeated claims of an intervention.
Last week, Trump had claimed that he warned India and Pakistan to end the conflict or else he would snap any trade relations. “India and Pakistan were going at it. I called them both... They had just shot down seven planes... I said, if you do this, there's not going to be any trade, and I stopped the war. It was raging for four days,” Trump said.
He also said that Pakistan military chief Asim Munir praised his role for brokering a truce with India.
Referring to his recent meeting with the Pak Army chief and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Trump said: “He (Munir) said to a group of people that were with us... that this man (Trump) saved millions of lives because he saved the war from going on. That war was going to get very bad... I loved the way he said it".
