By Sreekanth B Hyderabad, February 25, 2026
During his State of the Union address to Congress on February 24, 2026, US President Donald Trump declared that he personally stopped what would have become a nuclear war between India and Pakistan in 2025.
Trump told the joint session: “India and Pakistan would be fighting a nuclear war right now if I didn’t step in. People said the Prime Minister of Pakistan would’ve died. Thirty-five million people would have been lost if it weren’t for what we did.”
The comment refers to the brief but intense military confrontation in May 2025 that followed the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 civilians—mostly tourists—were killed by gunmen. Indian authorities attributed the attack to Pakistan-based groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
On May 7, 2025, India launched Operation Sindoor, conducting precision missile and drone strikes on nine terrorist training and launch facilities inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan responded with artillery fire, airstrikes, and what it called Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos. The four-day exchange included cross-border shelling, drone incursions, and reported naval movements in the Arabian Sea.
Both sides claimed successes—India said it eliminated more than 100 militants with minimal collateral damage, while Pakistan reported civilian deaths and denied the presence of terrorist infrastructure on its soil. The hostilities ended abruptly on May 10, 2025, when the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two countries spoke on the established hotline and agreed to an immediate ceasefire. No formal third-party mediation was announced by either government.
Trump has repeatedly presented himself as the decisive figure behind the de-escalation. In earlier statements he said Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif personally thanked him for saving “ten million lives.” In the State of the Union speech he raised the figure to 35 million and added the claim that Sharif’s own life was at risk without American intervention.
New Delhi has consistently rejected any suggestion of US involvement. Indian officials, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have described the resolution as a direct outcome of Indian military pressure and bilateral military-to-military communication. Pakistan has likewise made no public statement confirming Trump’s version of events or acknowledging any personal appeal from its prime minister.
Independent analysts note that while the 2025 crisis carried genuine risk of further escalation between the two nuclear-armed states, publicly available evidence shows no record of direct American diplomatic intervention at the time of the ceasefire. Several US think tanks and media outlets that reviewed Trump’s broader claim of ending “eight wars” during his first ten months in office found that some of the listed conflicts were either dormant, exaggerated, or resolved without clear US brokerage.
The President’s remarks have renewed debate within the Indian diaspora about how Washington perceives—and portrays—its role in South Asian security matters. Many Non-Resident Indians view the repeated assertions of mediation in India-Pakistan disputes as inconsistent with India’s long-standing position that Kashmir and related issues must be addressed bilaterally without external involvement.
Neither the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi nor Pakistan’s Foreign Office had issued an official response to the latest comments at the time of publication. The White House did not provide additional documentation or details to support the President’s account.
This article will be updated if new statements are released by the governments concerned
