’11 planes shot down’: Trump repeats India-Pakistan ceasefire claim, renews Nobel Prize pitch

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday once again claimed that he helped prevent a full-scale war between India and Pakistan, saying the conflict could have escalated into a nuclear confrontation, while also asserting that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for resolving global conflicts.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One at Royal Air Force Mildenhall in the United Kingdom, Trump said the fighting between the two nuclear-armed neighbours had intensified significantly, claiming that 11 aircraft were shot down and millions of lives were at risk.

“That war was going to go nuclear,” Trump said, adding that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had credited him with saving “30 to 50 million lives.”

Trump reiterated his long-standing assertion that he persuaded both countries to halt hostilities by threatening steep tariffs.

“I said, if you keep fighting, I’m going to put a 200 per cent tariff on your country. I said the same thing to the other. I did it with India and Pakistan,” he said.

The US President also claimed he had helped resolve eight international conflicts, including disputes involving Azerbaijan-Armenia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo-Rwanda, arguing that these efforts made him more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than previous recipients.

The remarks came while Trump was responding to a question about Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, whom he described as “a wonderful person.”

India, however, has consistently rejected Trump’s claims of mediation in the India-Pakistan conflict.

Following the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 people were killed, India launched Operation Sindoor, carrying out precision strikes on terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

New Delhi has repeatedly maintained that the subsequent ceasefire was achieved solely through direct military-level talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan, and has reiterated that all outstanding issues with Pakistan are bilateral matters with no role for third-party mediation.