Donald Trump has done it again. In a passing comment during a testy Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the US President claimed credit for defusing tensions between India and Pakistan, apparently, ‘through trade.
‘If you take a look at what we did with Pakistan and India… we settled that whole… and I think I settled it through trade,’ Trump said, referring to the recent ceasefire understanding following the April 22 civilian killings in Pahalgam. He then mentioned an ongoing trade negotiation with India, as if that explained everything.
It doesn’t. The Indian government has made it amply clear that the United States had no role- not in the decision to halt firing across the Line of Control, not in the military calculations, and not in the diplomacy. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, testifying before a Parliamentary panel earlier this week, said unambiguously that Washington was ‘neither involved nor informed’. India and Pakistan reached the current understanding independently, as they have done before.
Ceasefire is not a talking point
For Trump, however, even matters as grave as cross-border hostilities are just more fodder for self-congratulation. His language is vague, his facts are off, and the delivery is flippant – ‘somebody had to be the last one to shoot’, he quipped, as if describing a game rather than a volatile stand-off between the two nations.
This is not the first time Trump has inserted himself into the India-Pakistan equation. In 2019, during a meeting with Pakistan’s Imran Khan, he casually claimed that Prime Minister Modi had asked him to mediate on Kashmir – a statement that India promptly and firmly denied. That was a manufactured claim then. This is another now.
Not everything is about you, Trump
India and Pakistan have had countless episodes of tension and engagement. Some led to war, others to carefully worded ceasefires. In none of these moments has a US president publicly, and falsely, claimed personal credit with such abandon. Trump’s suggestion that the mere whiff of a trade deal led to de-escalation not only trivialises the situation but also undermines the serious work done by Indian and Pakistani officials on the ground.
The Indian military does not take orders from foreign businessmen. Ceasefires aren’t signed over trade spreadsheets. And diplomacy in South Asia cannot be casually explained away in throwaway remarks at photo-ops.
A presidency addicted to applause
Trump’s compulsive need to play the hero, whether or not there’s a script, makes for good TV show. But it is corrosive to international credibility. Worse, it forces countries like India to waste valuable energy refuting empty boasts rather than focusing on genuine regional challenges.
This is not leadership. It is ego masquerading as statesmanship. If Trump insists on misrepresenting facts and elevating himself in stories where he played no part, his presidency will be remembered not for the peace he claimed to make, but for the noise he never stopped making.
