India attends Trump’s Gaza board meeting as observer

Reiterating his claim that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan last year, Trump said he threatened them with 200 per cent tariffs if they did not stop fighting. India has denied Trump’s role in brokering the ceasefire, and maintained that the two sides halted their military actions following direct talks between their DGMOs.

Listing the conflicts he helped end, Trump asked leaders to stand up as he mentioned the countries. He asked Sharif to stand up and said, “I spoke to Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi. He’s excited. He’s watching us right now. Pakistan and India. That was a big one. I think you should actually stand, come please stand just for a second. Pakistan and India. Thank you very much.”

He said he likes Sharif and Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir who he called a “great guy”. He said Sharif had said he saved “25 million lives” when he stopped the war. “You made that statement,” he told Sharif. “I said 25 million lives, could have been much more actually, but it was really a beautiful thing… That war was raging. Planes were being shot down, and it was Pakistan and India.”

“And I called them, I said, ‘Listen, I’m not doing trade deals with you two guys, if you don’t settle this up’. They said, ‘No, no, no’,” he said, adding that neither of the two countries wanted to do that.

“I said, ‘No, it has to. If you don’t do it, I’m not doing a trade deal. We’re not doing a trade deal’… And all of a sudden, I read where there was a little bit of a pullback by one, then the other, and all of a sudden, we worked out a deal. But I said, ‘If you fight, I’m going to put 200% tariffs on each of your countries’.”

“One of them, I won’t say which one, said, ‘No, can’t do that’. They both wanted to fight. But when it came to money, nothing like money. When it came to losing a lot of money, they said, ‘I guess we don’t want to fight’. And we solved that deal in two-three days… They were fighting, 11 jets were shot down, very expensive jets, and they were all in. Both of them were all in, and now they’re not,” Trump said. He did not specify which country’s jets he was referring to.

“And I think we’ll always be able to settle up with them. I really do. I think a lot of progress was made, even in the relationship. And Prime Minister Modi also is a great man. He’s a great guy. They’re all great, but I was very proud of it,” he said.

– With agencies

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More

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