ISLAMABAD: US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was “honored” that Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, credited him with “saving millions and millions of lives” by preventing a war between Pakistan and India from escalating during a military standoff in May 2025.
Trump’s remarks referred to the most serious confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors in years, which erupted earlier this year and brought them close to full-scale conflict before US-led diplomacy helped defuse tensions.
The president made the comments following a visit to Washington earlier this month by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Munir — Pakistan’s first civilian-military delegation to the White House in six years — for high-level talks on trade, counterterrorism cooperation and regional security.
“The prime minister of Pakistan [Shehbaz Sharif] was here [US] along with the Field Marshal [General Asim Munir], who’s a very important guy in Pakistan, and he was here three days ago,” Trump said as he addressed a gathering of American military leaders.
He said Munir, speaking to a group that included two generals, credited him with preventing a potentially catastrophic conflict with India from escalating, telling those present that Trump had “saved millions of lives because he saved the war from going on.”
“That was a bad war, and I was very honored,” Trump added. “I loved the way he said it.”
The visit by Sharif and Munir followed months of behind-the-scenes diplomatic engagement as Islamabad and Washington seek to recalibrate ties that have been strained in recent years over Afghanistan, counterterrorism policy and Pakistan’s deepening partnership with China.
The May crisis, triggered by escalating violence in disputed Kashmir and border skirmishes, underscored the volatility of South Asia’s security environment.
Analysts say Trump’s remarks highlight how central Pakistan’s military remains to Washington’s regional strategy, and how his administration is framing its role in preventing renewed conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
