Prime Minister Narendra Modi told President Donald Trump on Tuesday (June 17, 2025) that India has never accepted mediation, does not accept it, and will never do it in future. There is complete political consensus on this issue in India, PM Modi said, according to a media briefing by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri. US President Donald Trump’s claim that he personally brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan during May’s conflict has caused some diplomatic friction.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Trump in a telephone call that the ceasefire was achieved through talks between the Indian and Pakistani militaries and not US mediation, India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, said in a statement following the call.
“PM Modi told President Trump clearly that during this period, there was no talk at any stage on subjects like India-US trade deal or US mediation between India and Pakistan,” Misri said.
“Prime Minister Modi emphasized that India has not accepted mediation in the past and never will,” Misri added. There was no separate readout of the call from the White House.
Modi and Trump were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) Summit in Canada, but didn’t because of the US president’s hasty departure due to the situation in the Middle East.
Although Modi and Trump enjoy a personal rapport, there is a belief that Trump’s unpredictability and transactional approach to foreign policy matters may be straining the relationship.
India is currently negotiating a trade deal with the United States, but talks have encountered hurdles as the July 9 deadline approaches for the end of a 90-day pause on most tariffs threatened by the Trump administration against US trade partners. Ajay Bisaria, a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, told DW that India has so far handled Trump with strategic composure.
“But, when the US president repeatedly and publicly claims an outsize role in mediating the recent India-Pakistan conflict, expect public corrections from India,” Bisaria said. “Public opinion in India now tends to see the US as an unreliable partner,” he added.