US President Donald Trump again said that he stopped the India-Pakistan May 2025 war that was almost ready to start again.
Speaking to reporters in a joint press conference along with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is in US for the first time in seven years, at his Oval Office, Trump said, “I’ve stopped eight wars… I’ve actually stopped eight wars. We stopped India and Pakistan. I could go through the list… I’m very proud. I stopped one that was almost ready to start again.”
During the presser with the MBS, the president said that Mohammed bin Salman knew nothing about the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents, offering a fierce defense of the visiting Saudi crown prince that contradicted a U.S. intelligence assessment.
Trump later announced that he was designating Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally, and the two sides announced agreements on arms sales, civil nuclear cooperation, artificial intelligence and critical minerals.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that bin Salman approved the capture or killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The crown prince denied ordering the operation but acknowledged responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him,” Trump told reporters, with bin Salman sitting beside him. “Things happened, but he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.
Bin Salman said it had been “painful” to hear about Khashoggi’s death but that his government “did all the right steps of investigation.” “We’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that. And it’s painful and it’s a huge mistake,” he told reporters.
Trump, who chided the reporter who asked the Khashoggi question “to embarrass our guest,” also praised the crown prince for doing an “incredible” job on human rights, but did not elaborate.
ARMS SALES, CIVIL NUCLEAR AGREEMENT
The meeting underscores a key relationship – between the world’s biggest economy and the top oil exporter – that Trump has made a high priority in his second term as the international uproar around the killing of Khashoggi has gradually faded.
The warm welcome for bin Salman in Washington marks a high point for U.S.-Saudi ties, which have suffered because of Khashoggi’s murder. Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden traveled to the kingdom and met with the Saudi prince but he stopped short of hosting him at the White House.
Trump said he received a “positive response” about the prospects for Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel. But the crown prince made clear that while he wanted to join the Abraham Accords, he was sticking to his condition that Israel must provide a path to Palestinian statehood, which it has refused to do.
During a formal black-tie dinner at the White House later on Tuesday, Trump said he was “taking our military cooperation to even greater heights” by designating Saudi Arabia a major non-NATO Ally, a status that provides a U.S. partner with military and economic privileges but does not entail security commitments. U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June had made Saudi Arabia safer, Trump added.
Also read: Trump says in fact eight jets were shot down in Pak-India war
