New Delhi, July 19: In a fresh claim, U.S. President Donald Trump has said that five fighter jets were shot down during the India-Pakistan conflict in May and credited his administration’s intervention for bringing the situation under control.
Speaking at a dinner hosted for Republican senators at the White House, Trump remarked that the hostilities between the two South Asian nuclear powers were intensifying rapidly.
“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,” Trump said. “It was looking like it was going to go—these are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other.”
Trump reiterated that the United States helped de-escalate the situation by using trade negotiations as leverage. “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.’ Both very powerful nuclear states,” he said.
While Trump did not specify which country lost the jets or whether the number referred to combined losses on both sides, his remarks have raised eyebrows.
New Delhi has consistently maintained that the conflict was de-escalated through direct communication between the Indian and Pakistani militaries and denied any third-party mediation.
Trump also used the occasion to highlight the achievements of his administration. “Something I’m very proud of—we stopped a lot of wars. And these were serious wars,” he said. “We achieved more in six months than almost any other administration could in eight years.”
