US President Donald Trump has said eight planes were shot down in the May 2025 clash between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India.
In an interview with a private television channel, President Trump said that some newspapers had reported that seven or eight planes were shot down during the war between Pakistan and India.
He added that one newspaper claimed that 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 eight planes were in fact shot down in the recent war between Pakistan and India.
Last month, the US president claimed that “seven beautiful new planes were shot down” during the Pakistan-India war, highlighting New Delhi’s loss in the fighting.
Trump had also boasted about his role in mediating the ceasefire, claiming that he single-handedly averted a potential nuclear confrontation.
While speaking at a dinner with business leaders in Japan, Trump had said that many of the wars he stopped were due to the tariffs he imposed on various countries, stating that he had done “a great service to the world.”
“If you look at India and Pakistan, they realized they were doing it,” he had said.
“I told [Indian] Prime Minister Modi and I told the Prime Minister [Shehbaz Sharif]very good man, a very good man and the quarterback [Asim Munir] In Pakistan… I said, ‘Look, we’re not going to do any trade if you’re going to fight,’” Trump had said.
“We said ‘no, we won’t make any deal if you’re going to fight’ and within 24 hours that was the end. It was incredible, actually,” he added. “I think trade is responsible for 70 percent of the fact that we didn’t have wars.”
During a Diwali celebration at the White House on October 22, Trump said he had told Indian Prime Minister Modi that there should be no war with Pakistan, and emphasized that he had helped avoid several conflicts through diplomacy and trade pressure.
The American president had emphasized the result, saying: “And we don’t have war with Pakistan and India. That was a very, very good thing.” He concluded by personally praising Modi: “He is a great person and has become a great friend of mine over the years.”
The US president had claimed to have avoided eight wars so far through what he described as “deals and trade”, including one between Pakistan and India.
Trump has previously taken credit on several occasions for helping to calm tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, who have fought three wars since independence and remain at loggerheads over the disputed territory of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
In May, Pakistan and India engaged in a military standoff, the worst between the old enemies in decades, which was sparked by a terror attack on tourists in the Pahalgam area of IIOJK, which New Delhi said was backed by Pakistan.
Islamabad denied involvement in the Kashmir attack, which killed 26 men and was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Following the incident, India killed several innocent civilians in unprovoked attacks on Pakistan for three days before the Pakistan Armed Forces retaliated in defense with the successful 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 US-brokered ceasefire agreement.
