00:00External Affairs Minister S.J. Shankar has slammed the United States saying there is no definite trade agreement with Washington yet and negotiations are ongoing.
00:09J. Shankar has asserted that India is a very, very independent country and said that the U.S. should understand that India's decisions are driven entirely by self-interest.
00:20He has also reiterated that there was no U.S. involvement in India's ceasefire with Pakistan and it was Pakistan who approached India pleading for a truce.
00:31Despite India repeatedly busting the U.S. for taking credit for India-Pakistan truce, Donald Trump has yet again tried to reclaim the conflict through trade.
00:41India has made its position clear that there will be no trade with terror.
00:45But Trump remains adamant. He says he used trade as a tool to settle the conflict.
00:51Trump has claimed that the U.S. is doing big deals with both India and Pakistan as leverage for a ceasefire.
01:00In the United States, you have somebody who wants to be courted in a way and there's still no trade agreement between India and the U.S.
01:09So, does the U.S. understand the rationale of Indian foreign policy?
01:15Well, look, every country comes at the world from their history, from their national interest, from their, you can say, culture and argumentation.
01:31I think, I would imagine that the U.S. understands that India is a very, very independent country which will make decisions which are driven entirely by Indian interest.
01:41Do they really? Because the U.S. claimed that your tariffs on U.S. products would go down to zero percent.
01:49Well, you know, we are in the middle of a trade negotiation right now.
01:56Mm-hmm.
01:56It's still being negotiated.
01:59So, we have to wait and see at the end of this all, you know, what happens.
02:05For some reason, both armies were able to talk to each other, initiated by the Pakistani army?
02:12Yes. Yes. You know, we have a mechanism to talk to each other as a hotline.
02:19Yep.
02:21So, on the 10th of May, it was the Pakistani army which sent a message that they were ready to stop firing and we responded accordingly.
02:33And where was the U.S. in this process?
02:35Well, the U.S. was in the United States.
02:38I mean, obviously, there were U.S. Secretary of State Rubio and Vice President Vance had called up.
02:48Rubio had spoken to me.
02:49Vance had spoken to our Prime Minister.
02:52You know, they had their view and they were talking to us and they were talking to Pakistanis as indeed were some other countries.
03:02I mean, the United States was not alone in this.
03:05I think there were some countries in the Gulf.
03:08There were some others as well.
03:10You know, that happens naturally when two countries are engaged in a conflict.
03:15But the cessation of firing and military action was something which was negotiated directly between India and Pakistan.
03:23We made one thing very clear to everybody who spoke to us.
03:26Not just United States, but to everybody, saying, look, if the Pakistanis want to stop firing, they need to tell us.
03:35We need to hear it from them.
03:38Their general has to call up our general and say this.
03:41And that is what happened.
03:42Now, Trump claims this cessation of hostilities as a success that he brought about.
03:51Not only that, he is offering his help to solve a thousand-year conflict, I quote.
04:00Would you accept his help?
04:02And do you think India can benefit from his help?
04:05Look, we've had a long history of difficult relations with Pakistan.
04:14And the reason for that is that from the very start, we are talking since 1947.
04:22Okay.
04:22So, 1947 means you can do the maths 1947 to 2025 and figure out how many years the problem has been.
04:33We've had this problem because almost at the time of independence, Pakistan sent in, you know, exactly like this, proxy people and said, it's not us.
04:45You know, these are tribals who are angry.
04:49And then it turned out there were Pakistani military people, some of them in uniform, some of them not in uniform.
04:54So, they've also pursued a radical, I would say, extremist religious agenda, which using terrorism across the border as a way of trying to pressurize us.
05:10This has been their history.
05:13Now, if you ask me how do we propose to deal with it, we propose to deal with it bilaterally with the Pakistanis.
05:19It is something that we and the Pakistanis have to settle one-to-one.
05:24And we are very clear with them that they need to discuss with us.
05:29We are open to their discussing with us and ending to terrorism.
05:34It has got to be a serious talk.
05:35It is something that we need to do between us.
05:38I think I settled it through trade.
05:39We're doing a big deal with India.
05:42We're doing a big deal with Pakistan.
05:44And I said, what are you guys doing?
05:45You know, somebody had to be the last one to shoot.
05:49But the shooting was getting worse and worse, bigger and bigger, deeper and deeper into the countries.
05:54And we spoke to them.
05:57And I think we, you know, I hate to say we got it settled.
06:00And then two days later, something happens.
06:02And they say, it's Trump's fault.
06:04But we, Pakistanis, got some excellent people and some really good, a great leader.
06:12And India is my friend Modi.
06:14Modi?
06:15And he's a mutual friend.
06:16Yeah.
06:17He's a great guy.
06:19And I call them both.
06:20And we just, it's something good.
06:23He's a great guy.
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