WASHINGTON / ISLAMABAD — US President Donald Trump on Monday signaled his willingness to step in and defuse rising tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan following deadly weekend clashes along the border — declaring that he is “good at making peace.”
The recent hostilities erupted late Saturday and carried into Sunday morning, leaving 23 Pakistani soldiers martyred and around 200 Taliban and affiliated militants killed, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). The clashes have heightened fears of further instability between the two neighbors already struggling with strained relations.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One during his flight from Washington to Israel where he is set to oversee the first phase of a Gaza peace deal Trump expressed both confidence and enthusiasm about playing peacemaker once again.
“I hear now there’s a war going on between Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Trump told the press pool. “I said, ‘I’ll have to wait till I get back I’m doing another one.’ Because I’m good at solving wars. I’m good at making peace. It’s an honor to do it, and I save millions of lives.”
The US president’s remarks come amid renewed global attention on his self-proclaimed record as a dealmaker. Since returning to the White House for his second term in January, Trump has frequently touted his role in “ending eight wars” a claim critics and foreign policy experts have described as overstated but reflective of his trademark bravado.
Trump also weighed in on the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, which was recently awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. The president argued that his diplomatic achievements this year warranted special recognition.
“In all fairness to the Nobel Committee, it was for 2024,” Trump said. “But people are saying maybe they should make an exception because a lot of things happened during 2025 that were great. But I didn’t do this for the Nobel. I did it to save lives.”
Drawing comparisons to earlier conflicts in South Asia, Trump revisited his claims of having helped resolve tensions between India and Pakistan. “Think about India-Pakistan,” he said. “They were fighting for years 31, 32, 37 years. I got every one of those done, for the most part, within a day. That’s pretty good.”
He went on to suggest that economic pressure, not diplomacy, was his main weapon of choice.
“With India and Pakistan, I said if you guys want to fight a war and you’ve got nuclear weapons, I’ll put big tariffs on both of you 100%, 150%, even 200%,” Trump recalled. “I had that thing settled in 24 hours. Without tariffs, you could’ve never ended that war.”
Trump has repeatedly taken credit for brokering peace after the May conflict between India and Pakistan, one of the most intense military flare-ups in recent decades. That confrontation, triggered by an attack on Hindu pilgrims in occupied Kashmir which India blamed on Pakistan without providing evidence saw both sides exchange missile, drone, and artillery fire for four straight days before agreeing to a ceasefire.
Islamabad denied involvement in the attack and dismissed India’s narrative as “replete with fabrications.” During the conflict, Pakistan claimed to have shot down six Indian fighter jets, including French-made Rafales a claim New Delhi disputed, acknowledging only “some losses.”
Now, as fighting once again threatens regional stability this time along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier Trump appears eager to step back into the global spotlight as a mediator. Whether Kabul and Islamabad will welcome his intervention, however, remains uncertain.
