Trump repeats claim he settled wars, including between India and Pakistan, with trade
New York/Washington, Aug 3 (PTI): US President Donald Trump on Sunday yet again took credit for stopping conflicts around the world, including the recent one between India and Pakistan.
Since May 10, when Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim on several occasions.
Trump's latest claim comes days after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for ending several conflicts around the world including the one between India and Pakistan.
On Sunday, in a post on Truth Social, Trump slammed radio host and author Charlamagne Tha God, and said he (God) knows nothing about him or what he has done, “like just ending 5 Wars, including a 31 year bloodbath between Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, where Seven Million people have died, and there was no end in sight.”
“He didn’t know that, or India and Pakistan or, wiping out Iran’s nuclear capabilities, or closing the horrendous open Border, or creating the greatest economy,” Trump said.
Just a day earlier, Trump said in an interview on Newsmax that he has settled a lot of wars.
“You take a look at what's happened just over the last little while. We've settled a lot of, a lot of very beautiful wars have been settled… One of the wars India, Pakistan, nuclear,” Trump said adding that he settled conflict between Thailand and Cambodia as well as Congo and Rwanda.
“I settled that up. And I settled it up with trade. I settled a lot of them with trade. I said ‘listen, you guys are going to fight. You can fight all you want. I mean, just fight your hearts out. But we're not doing a trade deal’.
“All of a sudden they end up not doing a war. I settled a lot of wars. I think I settled averaging about a war a month. But, you know, we're saving millions of lives,” he said.
Trump on Wednesday announced the imposition of a 25 per cent tariff on all goods coming from India starting August 1, plus an unspecified penalty for buying Russian crude oil and military equipment.
The tariff for Pakistan was 19 per cent, lower than the 29 per cent announced by Trump in April. In fact, Trump on Wednesday also announced sealing a trade deal with Pakistan and said that Washington will work with Islamabad to develop what he described as the South Asian nation's “massive oil reserves.”
At a White House press briefing on Thursday, Leavitt said that Trump has “now ended conflicts between Thailand and Cambodia, Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo and Egypt and Ethiopia.”
She said that the president has brokered, on average, about one peace deal or ceasefire per month during his six months in office. “It's well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” she said.
Since May 10, Trump has repeated his claim nearly 30 times that he “helped settle” the tensions between India and Pakistan and that he told the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours that America will do a “lot of trade” with them if they stopped the conflict.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament this week that no leader of any country asked India to stop Operation Sindoor launched by India in retaliation after the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam that killed 26 people.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday categorically said there was no third-party intervention in bringing about a ceasefire with Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, asserting that the halting of the military action was also not linked to trade as claimed by Trump.
Intervening in the special discussion on Operation Sindoor in the Rajya Sabha, Jaishankar said Prime Minister Modi and Trump did not have any phone calls between April 22, when the Pahalgam terror attack took place, and June 16.
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NATO, others turn down US call for help in Hormuz: Trump
Washington (PTI): President Donald Trump on Tuesday said NATO and most of US' other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz as the war with Iran entered the third week.
In a social media post, Trump asserted that Iran’s military has been “decimated” and he no longer felt the need for assistance from NATO countries or anyone else.
Last week, Trump had sought help from European nations and others who depend on oil supplies transiting from the Hormuz Strait to safeguard the critical waterway.
“The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the US President said in a post on Truth Social.
Iran's attacks on Gulf nations and its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported, have sparked increasing concerns of a global energy crisis and are unnerving the world economy.
“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one-way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need,” Trump said.
He said Australia, Japan and South Korea too have turned down his call for help.
“Fortunately, we have decimated Iran’s Military – Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again,” Trump said.
He said that given the scale of recent military successes, the US no longer "need" or desires assistance from NATO countries, adding that it never relied on such support in the first place.
Speaking as President of the United States, the "most powerful" country in the world, "we do not need" help from anyone, Trump said.
The West Asia conflict began on February 28 when the US-Israeli combine conducted airstrikes on Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has effectively been shut following the US and Israel attack on Iran and Tehran's sweeping retaliation.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said that from Tehran's "perspective", the strait is "open". "It is only closed to Iran's enemies, to those who carried out unjust aggression against our country and to their allies.”
Earlier in the day, a second Indian-flagged LPG tanker, Nanda Devi, reached the country after safely sailing from the war-hit Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, the first ship, Shivalik, reached Mundra port in Gujarat.
As of now, 22 Indian vessels remain on the west side and two on the east side of the strait.
Indian authorities are in constant touch with all the relevant stakeholders in the region to secure the safe passage of the remaining ships, officials said.
