Donald Trump, President of the United States takes “U” turn on the issue of mediation between India and Pakistan ceasefire on 10th May 2025. Trump now says, “I don’t want to say, I did. But I had sure helped the problem solve between India and Pakistan last week, which was getting more and more hostile. And all of a sudden you start seeing missiles of different types; we got it settled. I hope I don’t walk out and 2 days later I found out that its not settled. But I think it is settled. And we talked to them about trade. Lets do trade”.
Shailesh Kumar, National Defence
New Delhi, 15 May 2025
Indian Government earlier has categorically rejected any such assertion. India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) firmly refuted multiple assertions made by the US leadership including VP JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio concerning the nature of the ceasefire, including suggestions of American mediation.
Over the past 48 hours, @VP Vance and I have engaged with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, including Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, and National Security Advisors Ajit…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 10, 2025
Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his 13th May Address To The Nation in the wake of Operation Sindoor rejected such claims without directly referring to US leadership. PM Modi said, “That’s why after India’s aggressive action, Pakistan started looking for ways to escape. Pakistan was pleading to the world to ease tensions. And after suffering heavy losses, Pakistan’s army contacted our DGMO on the afternoon of 10th May. By then we had destroyed the infrastructure of terrorism on a large scale. The terrorists were eliminated. We had destroyed the terror camps established in the heart of Pakistan”.
President Trump, who first broke the India- Pakistan ceasefire news on his ‘Truth Social’ account on 10th May at 05:25 PM wrote, “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Ceasefire was again confirmed by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dhar within minutes of President Trump’s tweet.
However, Vikram Misri, India’s Foreign Secretary who briefed media first time about the ceasefire on 10th may did never mentioned about any U.S. mediation. He did talk about the DGMOs of the two country spoke on phone.
India’s DGMO Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai without referring to Trump also talked about bilateral talks between DGMOs of two fighting nations.
But President Trump continued his ‘mediation’ rhetoric in multiple cascading media interactions. The issue became politically hot in India and first reaction came from Indian National Congress when INC leader Sachin Pilot criticised such a statement by President Trump saying it has never been India’s foreign policy to involved a third party in the bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. Congress party even asked for an all party meeting and a special session of Parliament.
President Trump during his address at U.S. Saudi Investment Forum on 13th May repeated the claim. Trump said,” Just days ago, my administration successfully brokered a historic ceasefire to stop the escalating violence between India and Pakistan. And I used trade to a large extent to do it. I said, “Fellas, come on. Let’s make deal. Let’s do some trading. Let’s not trade nuclear missiles. Let’s trade the things that you make so beautifully.” and they both have very powerful leaders, very strong leaders, good leaders, smart leaders, and uh it all stopped. Hopefully, it’ll remain that way, but it all stopped”
President Trump also commended his following leadership saying, “I was very proud of Marco Rubio and all of the people that worked so hard. Marco, stand up. What a great job you did on that. Thank you, JD Vance. Marco, the whole group worked with you, but it was a great job. And I think they’re actually getting along. Maybe we can even get them together a little bit, Marco, where they go out and have a nice dinner together. Wouldn’t that be nice? But we’ve uh we’ve come a long way. And that’s could be, you know, millions of people could have died from that conflict that started off small and was getting bigger and bigger and bigger by the day”.
Indian Government led by PM Modi faced severe criticism from all quarters for such a allegedly brokered temporary peace between two waring nation. However, post his meeting with CDS, Airforce chief, Army Chief, IAF stated that ‘Operation Sindoor’ has not stopped rather it is still ongoing.
This is not the first time, that President Trump has taken “U” turn on any subject. However, the whole top leadership had consistently maintained the stand. This has put PM Modi in an embarrassing situation as he is best known for a personal friend of Donald Trump.
Trump’s latest statement at Qatar Airbase will certainly cooled down heated topic now. However, he still insists he talked “trade”.
“Lets do trade, instead of war. And Pakistan was very happy with that. India was very happy with that. I think they are on the way. They have been fighting for a thousand years for now. I said, I can settle that up. I can settle anything. Let me settle that. How long have you been fighting. About a thousand years. Oh, that a lot. I am not sure about that. I am not sure about settling. That’s a tough one. They have been fighting for a long time. But we got that settled. Everybody was very happy about that. Looks like that was really going to be escalating, out of control”, Trump told U.S. warriors at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
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