Trump Repeats India-Pakistan Truce Claim: 'Saved 10-12 Million Lives'

US President Donald Trump on Thursday repeated his claim that he helped prevent a war between India and Pakistan in May last year.

“We were very happy to stop the war that had started between India and Pakistan, two nuclear nations,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. He claimed the world was safer and more peaceful than it was a year ago. 

“I was very honoured when the Prime Minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved 10-20 million lives by getting that stopped just before bad things were going to happen,” he said.

Trump's remarks are a reference to India's Operation Sindoor, which involved precision strikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The strikes were carried out in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 26 people.

“I settled eight other wars. India, Pakistan, I settled other wars that were... Vladimir Putin called me, Armenia, Azerbaijan. He (Putin) said, I can't believe you settled that one. They were going on for 35 years. I settled it in one day,” Trump added.

Trump has, time and again, claimed that the United States helped defuse tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, citing trade leverage and tariff threats as key factors. India has consistently denied any third-party mediation.

Since May 10 last year, Trump has repeated the claim nearly 80 times, dating back to his social media post announcing a “full and immediate” ceasefire that he said followed Washington-led talks.

Last week, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado presented her 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Trump at the White House.

Earlier this week, Trump again pressed his case for the Nobel Peace Prize, claiming that he deserved the honour for ending multiple wars. Speaking to reporters in Miami on Monday, after attending a college football championship game, he said, “I don't care about the Nobel Prize... A very fine woman felt that I deserved it and really wanted me to have the Nobel Prize. And I appreciate that.”

He also claimed to have saved “tens of millions of lives”, adding, “If you look at India, Pakistan...two nuclear powers. You look at so many of the countries that were in a 30, in some cases a 35-year-war, I got it done. We stopped eight wars, and maybe we'll be stopping the ninth very soon.”

Trump is using the Davos platform to promote the proposed “Board of Peace”, which he says will focus on Gaza's redevelopment after two and a half years of Israeli bombardment. He has invited several leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing the body as an alternative to the United Nations.

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