'No mention of trade in India-US talks during India-Pakistan crisis'

NEW DELHI: Government sources have denied former US President Donald Trump's claims about using trade as leverage to broker peace between India and Pakistan amid heightened tensions.According to news agency PTI, discussions between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US Vice President JD Vance made no mention of trade relations."After Operation Sindoor commenced, Vice President Vance spoke to the Prime Minister on May 9," a source told PTI."Secretary of state Marco Rubio spoke to external affairs minister S Jaishankar on May 8 and May 10 and to NSA Ajit Doval on May 10. There was no reference to trade in any of these discussions," they added.This comes after Congress questioned PM Modi on Donald Trump's claim, asking if the operation against Pakistan was stopped due to trade obligations and whether he had accepted American mediation on Kashmir.Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X, "The prime minister, his drumbeaters, and his apologists should answer.""The prime minister's much-delayed address to the nation was completely upstaged by President Trump's revelations a few minutes earlier. The prime minister was completely silent on them. Has India agreed to US mediation? Has India agreed to a 'neutral site' for a dialogue with Pakistan? Will India now give in on US demands for opening Indian markets in autos, agriculture, and other areas?" Ramesh asked."The months ahead will demand both painstaking diplomacy and a collective resolve. One-liners and dialogue-baazi are poor substitutes. We applaud and salute our armed forces unreservedly. They have done the country proud. We are 100 per cent with them at all times. But the prime minister has still much to answer for," he added.This comes after Trump on Monday claimed that he threatened India and Pakistan to stop the hostilities by using the trade card and said the States would stop doing trade with them if the two nations did not end the military operations against each other."I said. Come on, we're going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let's stop it, let's stop it. If you stop it, we're doing trade. If you don't stop it, we're not going to do any trade. People have never really used trade the way I used it. By that, I can tell you, and all of a sudden they said. I think we're gonna stop, and they have," Trump said."We're going to do a lot of trade with Pakistan. We're going to do a lot of trade with India. We're negotiating with India right now. We're going to be soon negotiated with Pakistan," he added.India and Pakistan on Saturday agreed to an immediate ceasefire following heightened cross-border tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations, triggered by the Pahalgam terror attack which claimed 26 lives.The ceasefire was the result of direct engagement between Indian and Pakistani officials, with Islamabad agreeing to the terms with "no preconditions, no postconditions, and no links to other issues."