US President Donald Trump said eight planes were shot down during the May 2025 clash between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India.
In an interview with a private television channel, President Trump said that some newspapers reported that seven or eight planes were shot down during the Pakistan-India war.
He added that one newspaper claimed seven planes were shot down and another damaged.
“I won’t name any newspapers here – most of them publish fake news,” Trump said, adding that in fact eight planes were shot down in the recent war between Pakistan and India.
Last month, the US president declared that “seven brand-new and magnificent planes had been shot down” during the war between Pakistan and India, highlighting the loss of New Delhi in the clashes.
Trump also boasted of his role in brokering the ceasefire, saying he single-handedly averted a potential nuclear confrontation.
At a dinner with business leaders in Japan, Trump said many of the wars he stopped were due to tariffs he imposed on several countries, saying he had done “a great service to the world.”
“If you look at India and Pakistan, they have gone for it,” he said.
“I told [Indian] Prime Minister Modi and I told the Prime Minister [Shehbaz Sharif]a very nice man, a very good man and the marshal [Asim Munir] in Pakistan…I said, ‘Look, we’re not going to trade if you’re going to fight,'” Trump said.
“We said ‘no, we won’t make a deal if you fight’ and within 24 hours it was over. It was incredible, actually,” he added. “I think trade is 70 percent responsible for the fact that we haven’t had wars.”
Speaking at a Diwali celebration at the White House on Oct. 22, Trump said he told Indian Prime Minister Modi that there should be no war with Pakistan, noting that he had helped avoid several conflicts through diplomacy and trade pressure.
The American president highlighted the result by declaring: “And we don’t have a war with Pakistan and India. That was a very, very good thing.” He concluded by personally praising Modi: “He is a great person, and he has become a great friend of mine over the years.”
The US president had claimed to have so far avoided eight wars thanks to what he described as “deals and trade”, including one between Pakistan and India.
Trump has already repeatedly taken credit for helping defuse tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, who have fought three wars since independence and remain at odds over the disputed territory of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
In May, Pakistan and India engaged in a military confrontation, the worst between the old enemies in decades, triggered by a terrorist attack on tourists in the IIOJK’s Pahalgam region, which New Delhi said was supported by Pakistan.
Islamabad has denied involvement in the Kashmir attack, which killed 26 men and was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
After the incident, India killed several innocent civilians in unprovoked attacks on Pakistan for three days before the Pakistani armed forces retaliated by defending themselves with the success of Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos.
Pakistan shot down seven IAF fighter jets, including three Rafales, and dozens of drones. After at least 87 hours, the war between the two nuclear-armed nations ended on May 10 with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement.
