When US President Donald Trump tried to reiterate his claim that his threat to impose tariffs was what “stopped the war” between India and Pakistan, he made a big mistake in geography and politics. Recently, when asked about how tariffs affect American national security, the President incorrectly called India “Iran.”
The Claim That Tariffs Can Keep the Peace
Trump meant to talk about the 200 percent tariff threat he says he used to get India and Pakistan to stop fighting. He says this is why he stopped the battle between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
But Trump said, “For example, look at Pakistan and Iran,” during his answer. I was in the middle of negotiating a trade deal with Iran, and Pakistan was next in line. And because of tariffs, they all want to talk about things in a different way. “We’ll make it a good deal.”
The mistake immediately spread on social media, especially since it was “remarkably noticeable” that Iran is not a proclaimed nuclear state while India is.
Trump kept telling his story, bringing up the fear of nuclear war: “And then I heard that they were shooting at each other, and I asked them at one of our talks, ‘Are you guys going to war? We are thinking about two nuclear powers.
He then went into detail about what he said he did, saying he threatened both countries with a “200 percent tariff” and told them they couldn’t do any business in the US. “I told both of them. The fight was over in less than a day. Trump said, “That would have been a nuclear war.”
The President used Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s most recent trip to the White House as proof of what he said. Trump said that Sharif told a group of people, “‘that man saved many millions of lives’ because he thought it was going to be war.”
Trump ended his explanation for tariffs by saying, “But when it came to war or paying huge tariffs, the tariffs won.” That’s why it’s so crucial. He stressed that tariffs give not just money, but also “the power to keep peace, the power to be used for good, is enormous.”
India Strongly Denies Any Third-Party Role in the Ceasefire
President Trump has said more than 50 times that he “stopped” the India-Pakistan confrontation, but New Delhi has stuck to its guns and denied any third-party participation in achieving the ceasefire agreement after the four-day conflict following Operation Sindoor.
The Indian administration has made it clear that the ceasefire agreement was made after the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) in Pakistan talked directly to his Indian counterpart.
In July, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said the same thing again: “The record of what happened at that time was very clear, and the ceasefire was something that the DGMOs of the two countries agreed to…” That’s all I’m going to say.
During a later discussion in the Lok Sabha about Operation Sindoor, which was a military response by the Indian Armed Forces in May to a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir, Jaishankar made two points very clear: “At no point in any conversation with the United States was there any connection between trade and what was going on.”
In the same debate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “No leader in the world asked India to stop military action.”
Trump’s most recent wrong mention of “Iran” makes his already very controversial story even more complicated.