During the APEC meeting in South Korea, President Trump stated that he had averted the full-blown war between India and Pakistan by threatening to slap huge tariffs as large as 250 in case of hostility. He talked about a time when seven planes were shot down, and two nuclear-tipped neighbors were fighting, and Washington intervened to stop combat by using economic pressure.
When Trump made the argument that economic interests could force strategic choices, he said he informed the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi that trade deals would be off the table unless they stopped fighting.
Skepticism has arisen against the argument. The Indian officials claim that the ceasefire in May after the military operations was achieved after bilateral military dialogue and the US did not mediate. In the broader trade aspect, however, the reality is much closer: the US has imposed tariffs on Indian products (some of them 50 percent) on grounds such as Indian buying of Russian oil and is also in the process of creating a trade agreement.
The interesting aspect is the realization that this is where economic and strategic diplomacy intertwines in real time. The leverage of tariffs in a military or diplomatic situation is pushing the conventional boundaries of trade policy. Regardless of the extent to which Trump is correct in detailing the intervention, it points out a change in which economic tools are being used as conflict-management solutions.
To India, the incident highlights the trickiness of its relationships between national security, regional competition, and trade interests. However, it is more transactional diplomacy to the US, the type of diplomacy in which even the greatest conflicts between major powers are to be discussed in terms of deals and tariffs.
Concisely, Trump is not really boasting of whether he prevented a war, but rather, how he would like to position the US as a force which leverages its economic strength to influence the way global security is formed.
The question of whether this model is sustainable or is accepted by the other actors is also another thing.
