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synopsis
Amid mounting scrutiny, US President Donald Trump appeared to soften his earlier claim of directly mediating the ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
In a significant shift, US President Donald Trump appears to have dialed down his earlier claims of directly mediating peace between India and Pakistan, now saying he "won’t say" he did it — but “sure as hell helped settle” the issue. The revised tone is being seen as a U-turn from his earlier assertions of brokering a ‘ceasefire’ between the two nations, aligning more closely with India’s consistent position that no third party was involved in ending the recent flare-up.
In a fresh statement made while addressing US military personnel at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Thursday, Trump said, “I don’t want to say I did, but I sure as hell helped settle the problem between Pakistan and India last week, which was getting more and more hostile.”
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The new, toned-down remark is a sharp contrast to his earlier assertions, where he directly claimed to have “brokered peace” between the two nuclear-armed nations following India’s ‘Operation Sindoor’—a series of precision strikes carried out on May 7 targeting terror infrastructure inside Pakistan. The strikes were in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people.
As Pakistan retaliated with attempted strikes on Indian military bases on May 8, 9 and 10, India launched a fierce counter-attack, hitting multiple Pakistani military installations. The situation escalated rapidly, with India's robust air defence systems taking down a swarm of Pakistani drones during those four intense days.
By May 10, both sides agreed to a halt military action. The understanding was reached directly between the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two countries. India has categorically denied the involvement of any third party, including the United States.
However, this hasn’t stopped Trump from repeatedly inserting himself into the narrative. Thursday’s comment marks the sixth time since Saturday that he has spoken about the India-Pakistan ceasefire, albeit with a noticeable shift in tone.
“And all of a sudden, you’ll start seeing missiles of a different type. And we got it settled. I hope, I hope I don’t walk out of here and two days later find out that it’s not settled, but I think it is settled,” Trump added, appearing less certain about his role in the outcome.
While Trump may have backtracked on his mediation claims, he continued to assert that he spoke to both countries about “trade.”
“Let's do trade instead of do war. And Pakistan was very happy with that, and India was very happy with that, and I think they're on the way, you know, they have been fighting for about 1,000 years in all fairness,” he told US troops in Doha.
"So I said, you know, I could settle that up. I can settle anything. Let me set it up. Let's get them all together. How long have you been fighting? About 1,000 years. Oh, that's a lot. I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure about settling. That's a tough one. They've been fighting for a long time, but we got that settled. Nobody, boy, everybody was very happy. I'll tell you that looked like it was really going to be escalating out of control,” he added.
Just days earlier, Trump had confidently told the world that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire” after a “long night of talks mediated by the United States.” In a Truth Social post, he even offered to help with a “solution” to the Kashmir issue, while praising Washington’s supposed role in helping both nations make a “historic and heroic decision.”
India, however, has held firm in its position that the Kashmir issue is strictly bilateral and that no foreign power has any role to play.
