WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has now raised the tally of aircraft shot down during the May 2025 conflict between Pakistan and India to 10.
The latest remarks by the US president came during an interview with Fox Business, which was aired on Wednesday.
The host was praising Trump’s “reciprocity policy” in trade and using tariffs for that when the US president chimed in: “And that’s being very nice and gentle. Look, I settled eight wars. Out of the eight wars, at least six were settled because of tariffs.”Trump then explained: “In other words, I said, ‘if you don’t settle this war, I’m gonna charge you tariffs because I don’t wanna see people getting killed.’ And they said, ‘no, what does this have to do with it?’ I said, ‘you’re gonna be charged.’”“Like India and Pakistan would’ve been a nuclear war in my opinion. They were really going at it. Ten planes were shot down. They were going at it,” he added.
Trump then quoted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as praising him for “saving at least 10 million lives when he got us to stop fighting”.“Because, see, they were going to nuclear, in my opinion. Without tariffs, that (ceasefire) wouldn’t have happened,” the US president asserted.
He also recalled Armenia and Azerbaijan’s decades-long conflict, which saw tensions reduce when Trump brokered an initial peace agreement in August 2025.
During the interview, Trump also termed “every single” US president during the last 50 years as “bad on trade”.“But I’m not bad on trade. I’m real good on trade,” he boasted.
US ties with Pakistan, India
During his Oval Office meeting with Trump in September 2025, PM Shehbaz had thanked the US president for his role in mediating a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in their four-day military conflict in May 2025.
Tensions between India and Pakistan had flared in April 2025 when a deadly terror attack on tourists in occupied Kashmir was, without evidence, blamed on Islamabad, which strongly refuted the allegations.
The two sides traded a series of tit-for-tat blows that ended in May with the declaration of a ceasefire by Trump, who has since repeatedly talked about his role in ending the military escalation between the two countries.
Initially stating that five jets were shot down during the conflict — albeit without specifying which side — Trump gradually raised that number to seven in October, and then eight in November. He has also praised Chief of the Defence Forces and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir on several occasions, calling him a “highly respected general”, a “great fighter” and “my favourite”.
India has differed with Trump’s claims that the ceasefire between the two countries resulted from his intervention and his threats to sever trade talks. After what some saw as strained relations between the US and India after failed talks, Trump earlier this month announced a “trade deal” with New Delhi. Days later, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also made a three-day official visit to the US, where he held talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
