US President Donald Trump continues his bid to take credit for brokering peace and a ceasefire deal between India and Pakistan. Hours before the country’s massive 50% tariffs threat to India went into effect on Wednesday, August 27, the MAGA leader again turned to commenting on the South Asian country, directing attention towards a call he claims to have had with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Trump participated in a full-house cabinet meeting on Tuesday, August 26 (US time), with senior official Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, among others, by his side. Before moving to the India-Pakistan issue, the US president reiterated his statements on Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying that if he weren’t the commander-in-chief, Ukraine would’ve ended up being at the centre of a world war-like situation.
What Trump said during the August 26 cabinet meeting in White House
The 79-year-old US leader first noted how they’ve repeatedly failed to get his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts – Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy – in the same room for a meeting. Hoping for a lasting peace deal to be struck between both countries, he said he had something “very serious” in mind if the negotiations don’t pull through.
Saying he wanted to see it end, he affirmed, “We have economic sanctions… I’ll tell you what. In my opinion, if I didn’t win this race, Ukraine could’ve ended up in a world war. We’re not going to end up in a world war anymore, but it would’ve ended up, possibly in a world war…”
Trump on India and Pakistan: Ceasefire was announced hours after talks with Modi
Then, he moved on to drop the India-Pakistan example. “Just like India and Pakistan were going to end up in a nuclear war if I didn’t stop them,” Trump said. “You know, it’s strange. I saw them fighting. Then I saw seven jets were shot down.”
He continued, “I said, ‘That’s not good. That’s a lot of jets. $150 million planes were shot down, a lot of them. Seven, maybe even more than that. They didn’t even report the real number.”
🚨BREAKING
Donald Trump exposed Narendra Modi like never before.
I talked to Modi and gave them 24 hours to stop the war and they did it in 5 hours. pic.twitter.com/LX6V5pG4UW
— Mohit Chauhan (@mohitlaws) August 26, 2025
Thereafter, Trump went on to directly name-drop PM Modi, saying, “I’m talking to a very terrific man, Modi of India… I said, ‘What’s going on with you and Pakistan?’ Then, I’m talking to Pakistan on trade, I said, ‘What’s going on with you and India,’ and the hate was tremendous. This has been going on for a hell of a long time, sometimes with different names, for hundreds of years.”
“I said, ‘What’s going on? I said, ‘I don’t want to make a trade deal,’” he added, pointing out that the South Asian nations still pushed him to negotiate. “I said, ‘I don’t want to make a trade deal with you,’ you’re going to end up in a nuclear war, and that was very important to them.”
The US president further claimed that he told both countries to call him the next day, as he was not interested in striking a trade deal with them amid their then-ongoing clash in light of the April 22 Pahalgam attack and India’s subsequent Operation Sindoor in early May.
“We’re not going to do any deals with you, or we’re going to put tariffs on you that are so high, I don’t give a da*n, your head’s going to spin. You’re not going to end in a war,” Trump claims to have told India and Pakistan. Then he established, the India-Pakistan ceasefire was finalised within “five hours” of his talks with Narendra Modi. Maybe it starts again, I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I’ll stop it if it does. We can’t let these things happen.”
Trump’s statement about seven jets being shot down was made even a day earlier, and on the eve of his Alaska summit with Putin as well. Despite the US president’s claims of playing “peacemaker” between India and Pakistan, New Delhi has long reiterated that the May 10 ceasefire was established without the intervention of any third party.
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With Trump’s 50% tariffs on India beginning today, making for the highest rate in the world, Pakistan secured 19% levies, i.e. the lowest tariff rate in South Asia.