On Tuesday (July 8, 2025), the Congress party criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for once again claiming credit for brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, and questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s continued silence on the matter. According to Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, this marks at least the 21st time in the past two months that Trump has repeated the assertion.

 

In remarks made on Monday (July 7), Trump claimed he had prevented a full-scale war between the two South Asian nations by warning both countries that the U.S. would halt trade relations if the fighting continued. Trump suggested that his use of trade as leverage was what convinced India and Pakistan to back down.

 

Ramesh said Trump’s repeated comments indicated that he believed his trade ultimatum prevented the four-day conflict in May—one he claimed was on the brink of escalating into a nuclear confrontation. “In essence, Trump’s message was: stop the war immediately or risk losing access to the American market,” Ramesh noted.

 

He also pointed out that Trump has been making these claims while simultaneously promoting an upcoming U.S. trade deal with both India and Pakistan.

 

“When will Narendra Modi—once described by his party colleague Ghanshyam Tiwari as the BJP’s ‘Trump card’—finally speak up on this issue?” Ramesh asked.

 

Trump, meanwhile, listed India among several countries where he claimed to have de-escalated tensions, including Serbia, Kosovo, Rwanda, and the Congo. “We stopped a lot of fights,” he said. “But the really major one was India and Pakistan. We stopped that one using trade as leverage.”

 

According to Trump, his administration warned both countries that the U.S. would not engage with them economically if they continued fighting. “They were possibly on the edge of a nuclear conflict,” he said. “And stopping that was critical.”

 

Trump has consistently made this claim since May 10, asserting that he was instrumental in defusing tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors. The conflict followed India’s launch of Operation Sindoor on May 7 in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, targeting terror infrastructure across the border.

 

The offensive led to four days of heavy fighting, which concluded on May 10 with an agreement to halt hostilities. India has maintained that it was its strong counter-attack that day that forced Pakistan to seek an end to the conflict.