White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday reiterated former US President Donald Trump’s claim that he leveraged trade to broker peace between India and Pakistan following the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack and subsequent Operation Sindoor.
During a press briefing, Leavitt said Trump remained “proud” of his peace efforts, adding that trade was used as a “powerful tool” to bring the Indo-Pak conflict to an end.
“[For] India and Pakistan [conflict], he [Trump] used trade in a very powerful way as leverage to bring that conflict to an end. He is very proud of these achievements and honoured to have restored peace in different parts of the world,” she said.
Highlighting Trump’s engagement with other international disputes, Leavitt pointed to his meetings with leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, crediting him with pushing for conflict resolution.
She further noted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio regularly briefed Trump on global conflicts, with his current focus directed toward the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Trump, in past statements, compared his alleged mediation in the India-Pakistan standoff with other peace efforts, including Southeast Asian disputes, claiming trade negotiations made such settlements “easy” for him.
The Pahalgam attack in April killed 26 civilians, prompting India to launch precision strikes under Operation Sindoor against terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). A ceasefire was eventually agreed upon after Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) reached out to his Indian counterpart.
Despite Trump’s repeated assertions, Indian officials have maintained that the ceasefire was a direct result of military-level communications between the two countries, not US intervention.