The White House on Tuesday reiterated former U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial claim of having played a decisive role in brokering peace between India and Pakistan following the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam terror attack and the subsequent Indian military retaliation under Operation Sindoor. 

Addressing the press, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt asserted that Trump had “used trade in a very powerful way as leverage” to end renewed hostilities between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

Leavitt highlighted that Trump considered this among his most significant diplomatic achievements and expressed that he was “very proud” of utilising economic instruments to restore peace in volatile regions.

She tied the India-Pakistan example to the broader narrative of Trump’s foreign policy, presenting him as a dealmaker who leaned heavily on trade negotiations to settle entrenched conflicts worldwide.

Leavitt drew parallels between this episode and Trump’s engagements with other global conflicts, noting recent peace initiatives involving Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as mediation efforts with the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

According to her, Trump not only took personal joy in facilitating such dialogues but also viewed them as part of his mission to bring stability to long-standing zones of conflict. She credited Secretary of State Marco Rubio with keeping the President constantly updated on “conflicts bubbling up all over the world,” emphasising that the administration’s immediate focus had shifted toward pressing crises such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Gaza conflict.

This statement aligns with Trump’s pattern of frequently elevating his peace-brokering claims, often framing them against ongoing global flashpoints to reinforce his reputation as an effective mediator.

Trump himself had fuelled the controversy earlier, on July 28, when he described his attempt to mediate between Thailand and Cambodia as “an easy one” compared with what he asserted was the vastly more challenging Indo-Pakistan conflict he had already resolved.

He had repeatedly credited his administration with orchestrating a ceasefire after May’s escalation, triggered by India’s retaliation against terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir following the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians.

Yet, official Indian sources have consistently outlined a different version of events, clarifying that it was Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) who approached his Indian counterpart with a request for de-escalation. According to New Delhi, the ceasefire was thus not driven by U.S. intervention but by Pakistan’s calculations after suffering both diplomatic isolation and targeted strikes under Operation Sindoor.

Analysts note that Trump’s repeated assertions of having “used trade as leverage” fit into his long-standing foreign policy style, where economic instruments were openly wielded as tools of coercion and bargaining. He has frequently linked trade deals to geopolitical concessions, suggesting a transactional approach to diplomacy that diverges from traditional multilateral negotiation.

While Leavitt stressed Trump’s record of peace initiatives—from the Balkans to the Caucasus and Africa—critics argue that his claims often inflate Washington’s role or sidestep the agency of regional actors who drove the actual decision-making.

In the South Asian case especially, India’s official stance has been to reject third-party mediation, maintaining that all matters with Pakistan must be resolved bilaterally, making Trump’s repeated statements diplomatically sensitive.

Taken together, the episode illustrates both Trump’s strategy of projecting himself as a global peacemaker through economic tools and the tension such claims create with the official narratives of the countries involved.

By reiterating Trump’s assertions, the White House sought to reinforce his foreign policy stature, but the discrepancy between U.S. claims and India’s official account underscores the complexity of attributing credit in high-stakes conflicts. Trump’s trade-centric diplomacy, while central to his political brand, thus continues to attract both acknowledgment for its economic leverage and scepticism for its oversimplification of deeply rooted geopolitical conflicts.

Based On ANI Report