WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI, July 19 —US President Donald Trump has again claimed credit for ending the brief but intense military confrontation between India and Pakistan in May, saying that “five jets were shot down” during the clash and that his administration defused the situation through trade diplomacy.
Speaking at a White House dinner for Republican senators on Friday, Trump said, “You had India, Pakistan, that was going… in fact, planes were being shot out of the air — four or five. But I think five jets were shot down actually… that was getting worse and worse, wasn’t it?”
Describing the situation as dangerous, he added: “That was looking like it was going to go — these are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other.” Trump claimed that his administration used the leverage of trade deals to defuse the conflict: “We said, ‘You guys want to make a trade deal? We’re not making a trade deal if you’re going to be throwing around weapons and maybe nuclear weapons.’”
The former president did not clarify whether the five jets he mentioned were losses suffered by India, Pakistan, or both. The details remain unclear, as no such figure has been officially confirmed by either side during or after the hostilities.
In New Delhi, government sources reiterated that the military exchange that followed India’s Operation Sindoor — launched on May 7 to target terrorist infrastructure across the Line of Control — came to a halt after direct talks between Indian and Pakistani military leadership, without any third-party mediation.
The Indian government has consistently rejected Trump’s earlier claims of mediation, saying no foreign intervention was involved in bringing the situation under control.
The clashes were triggered by a terror attack in Pahalgam, claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF) — a Pakistan-backed proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). In response, India launched targeted strikes across the border. The conflict lasted four days, culminating in a mutual cessation of military actions on May 10.
The United States on Thursday designated TRF as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the designation would help counter the group’s funding and operational capabilities.
India welcomed the designation, calling it a “timely and necessary step” to hold cross-border terrorist groups accountable.
Trump, reflecting on his administration’s foreign policy, said: “Something I’m very proud of — we stopped a lot of wars, a lot of wars. And these were serious wars.”
Since May, Trump has repeatedly referred to the India-Pakistan flare-up as one of the crises he helped resolve, though his version of events remains disputed by the Indian government.
