Trump shared the account with his characteristic boast about settling disputes, recounting how he allegedly handled what he described as an imminent armed clash in South Asia.
According to Trump, both countries were “going to go at it, nuclear weapons,” and he said he warned them that Washington would impose a massive tariff if they proceeded.
“I said that’s okay, you can go at it, but I’m putting a 350% tariff on each country,” he told the audience, adding that he refused to “have you guys shooting nuclear weapons at each other, killing millions of people, and having the nuclear dust floating over Los Angeles.”
He said leaders in both capitals initially pushed back, but he claimed he held firm: “They said, ‘We don’t like that.’ I said, ‘I don’t care if you like it or not.’”
Trump then recounted that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called him to acknowledge the intervention.
“He actually said, ‘I saved millions,’” Trump said, adding that the praise was repeated “in front of Susie,” a reference to one of his longtime advisers. “He said, ‘President Trump saved millions and millions of lives.’”
Trump also said he received a call from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shortly afterward.
“I got a call… saying, ‘We’re done,’” Trump claimed. “We’re not going to go to war.”
For Pakistan, the remarks are notable not only because of the nuclear angle but also because Trump rarely speaks so directly about his dealings with Islamabad.
The speech eventually shifted to other matters — including Sudan — with Trump saying Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had urged him to take on a dispute he “didn’t think was going to be so easy to do.”
“He said, ‘Yeah, thank you. Thank you to you,’” Trump remarked, explaining that it wasn’t even on his “charts” but that he would now “start working in Sudan.”
Still, the core of his address returned repeatedly to the same claim: that he used economic pressure — tariffs, primarily — to halt conflicts.
“Five of the eight were settled because of the economy, because of trade,” he said, insisting that no other US president would have used the same approach.
This is not the first time Trump has boasted about stopping a war between two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals.
It was actually the second time during Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman's visit alone that he mentioned his “peacekeeping.”
Addressing a joint press conference with MBS, who was visiting the US for the first time in seven years, at the Oval Office, Trump said: “I've stopped eight wars... I've actually stopped eight wars.”
Expressing pride in halting eight conflicts across the globe, the US president on Wednesday claimed that he prevented a war from “restarting” between Pakistan and India.
Earlier this year, the two nations engaged in a military showdown, the worst between the old foes in decades, which was sparked by an attack on tourists in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam area, which New Delhi alleged was backed by Pakistan.
Islamabad denied involvement in the Pahalgam attack, which killed 26 men and offered to participate in a neutral probe into the deadly incident.
During the clashes, Pakistan downed seven Indian fighter jets, including three Rafale, and dozens of drones. After at least 87 hours, the war between the bitter rivals ended on May 10 in a ceasefire agreement brokered by the US.
The US president, during a White House media briefing last month, had said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif credited him with preventing a catastrophic nuclear war with India that could have killed millions.
Trump asserted he had halted eight wars, including recent Gaza breakthrough, and is pushing to end the Ukraine conflict.
He also highlighted his broader diplomatic record. “Eight wars stopped in nine months — Pakistan-India, Israel-Iran, Rwanda-Congo, Ethiopia-Egypt, Armenia-Azerbaijan, and now Gaza.
I’m working on Ukraine next,” he had said, touting his mediation of a Gaza deal that saw 20 Israeli hostages freed and 2,000 Palestinian detainees swapped.
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