Following the Pahalgam terror assault, US President Donald Trump has frequently taken credit for stopping the current escalation of the India-Pakistan conflict, claiming that he used trade as leverage to bring both nations to an end of hostilities.
“We did that through trade,” Trump said, implying that the pressure was decisive. He claimed that his administration informed both India and Pakistan that the US would not hold trade talks unless the conflict was resolved. We won’t discuss trade with you until you resolve this issue, as I stated, and they did.
Prior to any formal announcements from India or Pakistan, Trump first made the US-brokered truce on social media on May 10, 2025. “If you stop it, we’ll do a trade,” he added later, explaining that the fear of withholding trade agreements played a key role in persuading both parties to halt military operations. We won’t make any trades if you don’t stop it.
Trade has never actually been used by anyone the way I did. US Commerce Secretary Howard W. Lutnick also made this assertion in a sworn court filing, arguing that Trump’s offer of commercial access was crucial to preventing a full-scale conflict between the two nuclear-armed states.
India, however, has flatly denied these allegations. In official talks with the US during the crisis, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) reaffirmed that India and Pakistan handle all issues pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir bilaterally and that no third party mediation or trade negotiation took place.
“The issue of trade did not come up in any of these discussions,” the MEA said explicitly, stressing that the cease-fire was decided upon after a direct military-to-military communication between the two nations’ Director Generals of Military Operations.
India upheld its long-standing strategy of bilateral engagement with Pakistan on such matters and characterized the result as a cessation of hostilities rather than a “ceasefire.”
In conclusion, India adamantly rejects any US involvement or trade-related pressure in the decision to end hostilities, arguing that the resolution was reached through direct bilateral military communication and not outside intervention, despite Trump and his administration’s claims that US trade leverage was essential in resolving the India-Pakistan conflict.
