United States President Donald Trump has once again referred to the brief military conflict between Pakistan and India earlier this year, claiming that seven “brand new, beautiful planes” were shot down during the escalation.
Addressing a dinner with business leaders in Japan on Tuesday, Trump said he had helped prevent several wars through trade pressure and tariffs, including the one between Pakistan and India in May.
“If you look at India and Pakistan, they were going at it, seven brand-new, beautiful planes were shot down,” Trump said.
“I said to Prime Minister Modi and I said to the Prime Minister [Shehbaz Sharif], very nice man, a very good man, and the Field Marshal [Asim Munir] over in Pakistan… I said, ‘look, we’re not going to do any trade if you’re going to be fighting.’”
According to Trump, the warning led both sides to step back from confrontation. “We said, ‘no, we’re not doing any deals if you’re going to fight,’ and within 24 hours, that was the end of that.
It was amazing, actually,” he added, claiming that trade was “responsible for 70 percent of the fact that we didn’t have wars.”
The May conflict, the worst clash between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in decades, was triggered by an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Illegally Occupied Kashmir, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan without presenting evidence. Islamabad rejected the allegation, calling India’s account “replete with fabrications.”
During the four-day confrontation, both countries reportedly used fighter jets, missiles, artillery, and drones, resulting in dozens of casualties before a ceasefire was reached.
At the time, Pakistan said its forces had downed six Indian fighter jets, including a French-made Rafale, while India acknowledged suffering “some losses” but denied losing that many aircraft.
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