Donald Trump used his 2026 State of the Union address to claim he prevented the assassination of Pakistan’s prime minister and averted nuclear war between India and Pakistan during hostilities last year. Delivered as part of a vast catalog of foreign policy achievements, the remarks immediately prompted scrutiny of their scope and specificity.
“In my first 10 months, I ended eight wars … Pakistan and India would have had a nuclear war. 35 million people said the prime minister of Pakistan would have died if it wasn’t for my involvement,” Trump said.
The comments were the first time he publicly claimed to have saved Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s life by intervening in what he described as India’s “Operation Sindoor”.
Claims to avert “nuclear war” between India and Pakistan
Trump has repeatedly claimed that his diplomacy stopped a four-day military confrontation between India and Pakistan last year. Both nations possess nuclear weapons and the crisis caused worldwide concern at the time.
But the president’s latest remarks went further, suggesting that Pakistan’s leadership was under direct threat and that tens of millions could have perished without his intervention. He said Shehbaz Sharif told him that “35 million people in Pakistan would have been killed” if the United States had not intervened.
Indian officials consistently rejected the suggestion of American mediation. When asked earlier about Trump’s claim of playing peacemaker, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar curtly replied that Trump “was in the US”.
New Delhi maintains that any de-escalation was the result of direct communication between the military rather than external diplomacy.
‘Ended eight wars’: Trump’s sweeping foreign policy claims
The India-Pakistan episode was part of a wider declaration that he had resolved eight international conflicts in the first ten months of his second term.
“In the first 10 months, I ended eight wars,” Trump said, listing conflicts between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand.
The scope of the claim — spanning regions from the Middle East to Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia — reflects an effort to portray his administration as the architect of a stabilizing global order. Independent verification of formal peace settlements in all of the listed conflicts remains questionable.
“We’re winning so much”: Economic certainty ahead of medium-term deadlines
The foreign policy claims were woven into a broader argument that the United States is experiencing renewed prosperity under his leadership, as polls suggest softening ratings ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Trump framed his speech as evidence of economic recovery and geopolitical strength.
“Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do with it. People are asking me, ‘Please, please, please, Mr. President, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it anymore,'” he said. “In our country we are not used to winning until you come.
In an effort to cultivate bipartisan symbolism, he invited the Olympic gold medal-winning United States men’s ice hockey team to standing ovation after their visit to the White House earlier in the day.
