On trade, Donald Trump claimed progress in talks with India and repeated his assertion that India had reduced oil imports from Russia. “It’s great, going good. He (PM Modi) stopped… Largely, he stopped buying oil from Russia,” he said.
Trump had imposed 25 per cent reciprocal tariffs on India and an additional 25 per cent levy on purchases of Russian oil, taking total levy to 50 per cent.
Trump also revisited an oft-repeated claim: that he stopped a war between India and Pakistan using tariffs. “Of the eight wars I ended, five or six were ended because of tariffs,” he said. “If you take a look at India and Pakistan, they started to fight… And I said, ‘Listen, if you guys are going to fight, I’m gonna put tariffs on you.’ Within 24 hours, I settled the war. If I didn’t have tariffs, I wouldn’t have been able to settle that war.” Trump called tariffs a “great national defence.”
Since his May 10 announcement on India-Pakistan ceasefire, Trump has repeated his claim more than 60 times.
