Tokyo, 28 Oct 2025

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that seven aircraft were downed during the short military escalation between Pakistan and India in May.

Trump told business leaders in Japan that many of the conflicts he prevented were due to tariffs he imposed on countries, and he had done “a great service to the world." “If you look at India and Pakistan, they were going at it,” said Trump. “Seven brand new, beautiful planes were shot down.”

He said he told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whom he called a “very nice man, a very good man,” and Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir that "we’re not going to do any trade if you’re going to be fighting.”

“We said, No, we’re not doing any deals if you’re going to be fighting, and within 24 hours that was the end of that. It was amazing, actually,” he said. “I think trade is responsible for 70% of the fact that we didn’t have wars by using our heads.”

The two nuclear-armed South Asian nations engaged in a four-day skirmish, which ended with a ceasefire announced May 10 by Trump.​​​​​​​

According to Nikkei Asia, Trump spends the evening of Tuesday 28^th October at the residence of US ambassador to Japan with Japanese and American business leaders, from SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son and Hitachi CEO Toshiaki Tokunaga to Apple chief Tim Cook. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other officials are also on hand. Numerous deals of various types and varying degrees of specificity have been signed, such as one between the Commerce Department and Hitachi, which seeks to "advance energy security, resilience and technological leadership."

CNN reported on Wednesday, 7^th of May 2025 that India launched military strikes on targets in Pakistan, both countries said on Wednesday and Pakistan claimed it had shot down five Indian Air Force jets, (French Super Rafale Jets) in an escalation that has pushed the two nations to the brink of wider conflict.

India’s missile strikes early Wednesday morning targeted “terrorist infrastructure” across nine sites in Pakistan’s densely populated Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, it said. They came in response to a massacre by militants of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir two weeks ago, that New Delhi blamed on its neighbor.

Pakistan said at least 26 people were killed in Wednesday’s strikes – including women and a three-year-old girl – and 46 wounded. The country’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described the strikes as “an act of war” and Islamabad has vowed to retaliate.

Nikkei Asia reported that U.S. President Donald Trump is on a whirlwind trip to Asia, reconnecting with partners shaken by his global tariff policies and maneuvering in his trade war with China.

After a stop in Malaysia for the ASEAN Summit, Trump arrived in Japan on Monday. On Tuesday, he spent the day with new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, with defense and economic security featuring heavily in their talks. Trump departed for South Korea on Wednesday morning, where he is likely to sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margins of the APEC forum.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been a flashpoint in India-Pakistan relations since both countries gained their independence from Britain in 1947.

The two nations that emerged from the bloody partition of British India both claim Kashmir in full and, months after becoming independent, fought their first of three wars over the territory. The divided region is now one of the most militarized places in the world.

For decades, several domestic militant groups, demanding either independence for Kashmir or for the area to become part of Pakistan, have fought Indian security forces, with tens of thousands killed.

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring these militant groups – a charge Islamabad denies – and had vowed to retaliate against those they deemed responsible. Tensions over Kashmir have also surged in recent years, after Indian Prime Minister Modi’s government revoked the region’s constitutional autonomy in 2019, bringing it under the direct control of New Delhi.

Observers say a response from Pakistan to the strikes will be likely, and concern now turns to how to manage what comes next. “Pakistan‘s response is sure to come. The challenge would be to manage the next level of escalation. This is where crisis diplomacy will matter,” said Ajay Bisaria, former high commissioner of India to Pakistan.