Tariffs Helped Avert India-Pak Nuclear Disaster
Washington DC: US President Donald Trump once again took credit for preventing multiple global conflicts, reiterating his belief that tariffs and trade negotiations have helped prevent five out of eight wars, including May’s standoff between India and Pakistan.
Speaking at lunch with Senate Republicans in the newly renovated Rose Garden of the White House on Tuesday (local time), Trump said tariffs are not just an economic tool but also a matter of national security.
Trump said, “I talked about eight wars, nine are coming. Five of the eight wars were based solely on trade and tariffs. India-Pakistan was going for it. Two nuclear powers and serious nuclear power. Seven planes were shot down. They were ready to go and I called them. I said, ‘If you go to war, we’re not making a trade deal.'”
He claimed that both countries questioned the importance of trade in the context of a military standoff, to which he replied: “‘A lot of things. You’re a nuclear power, and if you do that, we’re not going to have a trade deal.’ Twenty-four hours later they called me. ‘We decided not to do this.’”
“We stopped the war. We stopped a potential disaster, a nuclear disaster, because of trade,” he said.
Trump’s comments touched on the escalation following India’s Operation Sindoor in May – a series of precision strikes on nine terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians on April 22.
Defending the use of tariffs, Trump told Republican lawmakers that they serve both economic and strategic purposes.
“Tariffs equal national security. Remember that. Tariffs equal national security,” he said, repeating the phrase for emphasis.
“They also equal wealth for our nation because we amicably received hundreds of billions of dollars given to us by countries that took from us. They imposed tariffs on us; we never imposed tariffs on them because we were stupid,” he added.
He also claimed that tariffs made the United States a “rich country,” allowing it to support defense and global security efforts.
“Tariffs made us a rich country. They gave us tremendous defense; they gave us things we could do for other countries… It’s really national security; national defense,” Trump said.
Trump has repeatedly stated that trade policies play a key role in reducing tensions between India and Pakistan.
However, India has consistently denied such allegations, maintaining its stance that any issues related to Pakistan, including those related to Jammu and Kashmir, should be resolved bilaterally between the two countries.
