Trump says 350% tariff warning helped avert potential Pakistan-India nuclear crisis

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U.S. President Donald Trump told a Saudi investment conference on Wednesday that he had taken steps to stop a nuclear showdown between Pakistan and India, which he warned could cost “millions” of lives.

Trump made the comments with a familiar boast about being able to resolve conflicts, before describing how he handled it as a descending armed conflict in South Asia.

According to the US president, the two countries were “going to go at it with nuclear weapons,” and he said he had warned them that Washington would slap massive tariffs if they went ahead.

“I said that’s fine, you can go for it, but I’m putting a 350% tariff on every country,” he told the audience, adding that he “refused to let you guys shoot nuclear weapons at each other, kill millions of people and have nuclear dust floating in Los Angeles.”

He said the leaders of both capitals pushed back, but he claimed he acted firmly: “They said, ‘We don’t like it.’ I said, ‘I don’t care if you like it or not.’

Trump then recounted a moment when, he said, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif called him to acknowledge the intervention.

“He actually said, ‘I saved millions,'” Trump told the room. “He said, ‘President Trump saved millions and millions of lives.’

The US president also said that he received a call from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon after.

“I got a call … saying, ‘We’re done,'” Trump claimed. “We are not going to war.”

For Pakistan, the remarks come not only because of the nuclear angle but also because Trump rarely talks directly about his dealings with Islamabad.

The speech eventually turned to other issues, including Sudan — a dispute Trump said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had urged him to take on.

“He said, ‘Yes, thank you. Thank you.’

Still, the heart of his address kept returning to the same claim: that he used economic pressure—mostly—rates to close the conflict.

“Five out of eight were settled because of the economy because of trade,” he said, insisting that no other US president could have used the same approach.

This is not the first time President Trump has boasted about preventing a war between the two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals. It was actually the second time, during a visit by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, that he mentioned his “peacekeeping”.

Speaking at a joint press conference with MBS, who is visiting the US for the first time in seven years, in his Oval Office, Trump said: “I stopped eight wars … I really stopped eight wars.”

While boasting of having stopped eight wars around the world, the US president on Wednesday claimed that he had stopped war between Pakistan and India from “resuming”.

Earlier this year, the two countries engaged in a military showdown, the worst between the decades-old foes, after India illegally targeted tourists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam region, which New Delhi accused of supporting Pakistan.

Islamabad has denied involvement in the Pahalgam attack, which killed 26 people, and offered to participate in an impartial investigation into the deadly incident.

During the clashes, Pakistan shot down seven Indian fighter jets, including three Rafales, and dozens of drones. After at least 87 hours, the war between the bitter rivals ended on May 10 in a cease-fire agreement brokered by the United States.

During a White House media briefing last month, the US president said that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif credited him with preventing a catastrophic nuclear war with India that could have killed millions of people.

Trump has asserted that he has stopped eight wars, including the recent Gaza developments, and is pushing for an end to the Ukraine conflict.

He also highlighted his extensive diplomatic record. “Eight wars stopped in nine months,” he said.