Eight planes shot down? Trump modifies claim on India-Pakistan conflict; says tariffs helped secure truce—watch video
Since India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire, US President Donald Trump has asserted his self-proclaimed role in brokering the truce a whopping 60 times, mentioning that seven planes were downed.
After repeating his claim that seven planes were shot down during the brief May conflict between India and Pakistan, US President Donald Trump has changed tune, claiming now that not seven, but eight planes were downed.
Donald Trump's latest comment came during the America Business Forum, Miami, Florida, on Wednesday, wherein the US president highlighted again that he was instrumental in brokering peace between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Tariffs stopped India-Pakistan war
"Pakistan and India...I was in the midst of a trade deal with both of them, and then... I heard they were going to war. Seven planes were shot down, and the eighth was really badly wounded... Eight planes were shot down, essentially," Trump said.
"I said, this is war... 'I'm not going to make any trade deals with you guys unless you agree to peace'. The two nations said, 'No way. This has nothing to do...’ I said, ‘It has everything to do. You are nuclear powers. I'm not trading with you. We're not making any deals with you if you're at war with each other'," Trump added.
"A day later, I get a call saying, 'We made peace'. They stopped. I said, 'Thank you. Let's do trade'. Isn't that great? Tariffs did that... Without tariffs, that would have never happened," the US President said, doubling down on his claim that he leveraged trade to push both nations into a truce.
Trump's latest comment is the latest in a series of claims he has made about the India-Pakistan truce, which he announced on 10 May on Truth Social, claiming that the ceasefire was agreed to after a "long night" of talks between Islamabad and New Delhi, mediated by Washington.
In fact, since then, Trump has asserted his self-proclaimed role in brokering the truce a whopping 60 times, mentioning that seven planes were downed every now and then.
His current claim of eight planes being shot down, however, is new, and the US President has yet to comment on which sides incurred the losses.
Despite Trump's repeated claims about bringing India and Pakistan to the negotiating table (a claim also backed by Islamabad), India has vehemently denied any third-party involvement in the truce, which it says was negotiated through direct talks between the Directors General of Military Operations of the two nations.
Following India's Operation Sindoor—carried out in retaliation for the 22 April Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians—New Delhi and Islamabad got involved in four days of intense cross-border fire exchanges and missile strikes, before declaring a truce.