US President Donald Trump has claimed that his intervention prevented the recent India-Pakistan conflict from spiralling into a nuclear war by leveraging trade diplomacy.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump said Pakistan and India were locked in a tit-for-tat cycle of escalating hostilities. He described the episode as a major foreign policy achievement, saying it was "a bigger success than I would be ever given credit for".
"Those are major nuclear powers and they were angry. The next phase was probably ... you see where it was getting," he said, adding that the conflict could have turned "nasty" had he not stepped in to secure a ceasefire.
Speaking on the potential for a nuclear showdown, Trump said both countries had come dangerously close to war. "And I said we're gonna talk about trade. We're gonna do a lot of trade don't forget Iran wants to trade with us," he noted.
The US president said he had a productive conversation with Pakistan and expressed his desire to expand trade relations. He praised Pakistani-made products and said he would be more than happy to boost trade ties, which, in his view, remain underdeveloped.
"Ohh they would love to trade they would love to trade, they are brilliant people they make brilliant products," he noted.
Earlier, during a visit to a US military base in Qatar as part of his Gulf tour, Trump told American troops that both Pakistan and India were satisfied with the ceasefire.
He said hostilities between the two nuclear-armed neighbours had been defused after he encouraged them to shift their focus from war to economic cooperation.
The decades-old rivals halted what was described as their worst fighting in nearly thirty years after agreeing to a ceasefire on May 10. The agreement followed a series of diplomatic efforts and mounting pressure from Washington.
Pakistan welcomed Trump's mediation and maintained that it was India that approached the US seeking a ceasefire.
Reiterating his claims in the Fox News interview, Trump said that his outreach to both India and Pakistan pulled the two countries back from the brink - a move he again described as "a bigger success than I'll ever be given credit for," pointing to the "great hatred" between the two nations.
"Tensions got to a point where the next phase was probably 'nuclear'," Trump said.
When asked about foreign policy successes prior to his Middle East trip, Trump confirmed, "I did, ya," referring to the phone calls he made to both India and Pakistan. The interviewer acknowledged this as a success.
Trump described the conflict as a dangerous escalation: "It was tit for tat. It was getting deeper and more - I mean, more missiles, everyone was 'stronger, stronger' - so to a point where the next one's going to be, you know what? The N word. You know the N word is, right?"
The interviewer responded, "nuclear".
"It's the N word. That's a very nasty word, right? In a lot of ways. The N word used in a nuclear sense - that's the worst thing that can happen. And I think they were very close. The hatred was great. And I said, 'We're going to talk about trade. We're going to do a lot of trade'," Trump said.
"I'm using trade to settle scores and to make peace," he added.
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