Washington: US president Donald Trump has now claimed that he used tariffs as a tool to resolve several international conflicts, including the four-day one between India and Pakistan in May.
“…I settled a few of the wars just based on tariffs. For example, between India and Pakistan, I said, if you guys want to fight a war and you have nuclear weapons. I am going to put big tariffs on you both, like 100 per cent, 150 per cent, and 200 per cent…” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.
According to him, the threat worked and both countries brought the situation under control swiftly.
“I said I am putting tariffs. I had that thing settled in 24 hours. If I didn’t have tariffs, you could have never settled that war,” he added.
The US president had earlier said that he had intervened to bring an end to the conflict. He had then said that he had offered to do more trade with both India and Pakistan if they stopped fighting. That claim was denied by India.
Trump first spoke about his tariff strategy to end conflicts on October 9 during an interview with Fox News.
“Having the ability to use tariffs have brought peace to the world… You know I made seven peace deals. Not in all cases but probably at least five of the seven (peace deals) we’ve done so far were by trade, that we are not going to deal with people who fight and we’re going to put tariffs on you,” Trump said.
“You look at India and Pakistan, I said well we are not going to do business with either of you if you don’t put it together. These are two nuclear nations. Seven planes were shot down as you know and they were really at it… I said we are not going to do any business with you, we are not going to have anything to do with you, we are going to put massive tariffs on you and in both cases they said, well we’re going to start talking about it. There is tremendous amounts of money and power that we are dealing with and within 24 hours I had a peace deal that they stopped the fighting,” he added.
Trump has made a similar claim on September 21 when making a bid for the Nobel Peace Prize.
