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“After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and their Great Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” - post on X by US President Donald J.Trump on his official handle.
“I am very proud of the strong and unwaveringly powerful leadership of India and Pakistan for having the strength, wisdom and fortitude to fully know and understand that it was time to stop the current aggression that could have led to the death and destruction of so many, and so much. Millions Of good and innocent people could have died! Your legacy is greatly enhanced by your brave actions. I am proud that the USA was able to help you arrive at this historic and heroic decision While not even discussed, I am going to increase trade, substantially with both of these great Nations Additionally I will work with you both to see if after a “thousand years”, a solution can be be arrived at concerning Kashmir. God bless the leadership of India and Pakistan on a job well done!!!” - post by US President DonaldJ>Trump on his Truth Social handle.
Two posts by US President Donald J.Trump on the India-Pakistan conflict say a lot. And if true –India has challenged the first assertion that the US mediated the ceasefire— is a major cause of concern. Not for Pakistan that has always been happy with the old American position of interfering in South Asia, but for India that has been assertive about her independence and sovereignty.
Take the first post that caught everyone outside of course officialdom, by surprise. The television channels waging war were visibly upset and even furious with one anchor who was leading the war from his studio actually coming out to attack Trump and question his authority in effecting a ceasefire, in loud and aggressive tones. To the point where his angry articulation was noted by Americans in tweets wondering at the reporter's reaction. Trolls waiting for the decimation of Pakistan that seemed imminent from television reporting were equally astounded, and many decided to attack the Indian Foreign Secretary in a nasty, uncontrolled manner —and only because he made the announcement.
So why did that first tweet by Trump arouse such anger. It is immaterial whether India or Pakistan asked for intervention, or if indeed any did. What is material is the way the American President chose to phrase it. One, despite his vice president J.D.Vance’s initial “it is none of the business” assertion the US administration, according to the President, went into a “long night of talks” with India and Pakistan and emerged with a “FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE”. This was accompanied by some source based reports that both countries had agreed to talk at a third venue, but given the reaction at home India immediately denied this. It also denied American mediation insisting the ceasefire was at its own volition, although Pakistan praised Washington for its help!
Trump has from the beginning of the conflict sought to equate India and Pakistan. Till recently, Indian foreign policy of which the current External Affairs Minister Jaishankar was also a part earlier, had managed to de-hyphenate India and Pakistan in the world. This was done through sheerand arduous diplomacy that we saw play out over the years, until finally foreign dignitaries took India at her own level, recognised her unique status, and actually de-linked their references to the two countries. World leaders on flying visits started stopping only at New Delhi, without a quick visit to Islamabad as had become the practice. This was a major shift in approach and highlighted the success of Indian foreign policy.
If India had hoped that Trump would continue with this, it was clearly disappointed. As from the start of the conflict the new US President insisted that both countries were equally good friends, and in remarks to reporters at home said that they had been fighting for a long time (1500 years), and he hoped they would stop. The rhetoric was not lost on both the South Asian countries, with the Indian Foreign Office clearly not happy with the equations being made.
Since then there has not been a single defining word from Trump in support of India’s action against Pakistan, following the dastardly terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 innocent tourists. India has made it very clear from the beginning that its first action was in retaliation for this attack, it was not escalatory in nature, and intended only to take out Pakistan’s terror camps. Trump has not recognised this so far.
The second post by Trump is equally daunting for policy makers here. In that it has not noted the terror attack, or the precision of India’s missile strikes, but gone on to refer to the “current aggression” by equating the two countries yet again. And adding a significant and dangerous dimension to it.
Trump has highlighted the equation by thanking both India and Pakistan profusely for ending the aggression in which he said “millions” could have died;
By promising trade to both (as a sort of reward) and thereby making it clear that this was very much on the table for both in the post war scenario.
And ending it with a ‘god bless the leadership of India and Pakistan on a job well done’ in yet another galling equation that has been noted again by New Delhi.
But perhaps the most significant line in Trump’s post is “Additionally I will work with you both to see if after a “thousand years”, a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir.”
Trump, rightly or wrongly, has established the reputation of following up on his rhetoric with action. He has so far acted on every issue that he has raised, even when it has seemed completely bizarre such as the immigration threats and tariffs on the world. He might have amended the last somewhat but he has been taking great delight in acting upon his words and supposed promises. This is the first time that Kashmir has come up - his last reference to it being a sort of casual reference to India and Pakistan fighting over Kashmir for over a 1000 years to reporters at home. This did elicit some response in India but was ignored officially as the reference appeared to be very casual.
The second post above clearly reveals that it was not casual. And that Trump is likely to revive the Kashmir issue, and intervene to resolve it. The US President has not asked the two countries to work on it, but actually said that he would work with both to see if a solution could be arrived at. Trump was hoping to achieve peace in Ukraine but queered the pitch himself in his very first official meeting with the Ukrainian President Zelensky; and now he has clearly seized upon Kashmir that has been always of great interest to the US as a strategic issue in the region.
Pakistan, in the past, had always asked for American intervention on Kashmir while India had largely resisted it. Over the years the world had kept out —except for occasional statements —on issues such as statehood and Article 370 as “internal matters” for India to deal with. And while terrorism continued to call for condemnation, the global response to Kashmir per se was diluted to a level of indifference. Trump seems to have raked it up again as part of the India-Pakistan imbroglio and not offering but communicating his decision to work with both the neighbours to resolve this.
India has her diplomacy cut out to ensure that President Trump does not follow through on what is his understanding of the current aggression as he calls it, but respects New Delhi’s positions on terrorism and Pakistan. And that Kashmir is not up for negotiation as India has always maintained. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have to use his close relations with Trump to make him repocket his offers of help, and deal with India not as an equation of Pakistan, but an independent and sovereign country in every sense of the word.
