The United States monitors the India-Pakistan situation “every single day”, said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday, reiterating claims by American President Donald Trump of having helped in averting a nuclear escalation between two Asian neighbours. Speaking to NBC News, Rubio said truce deals can fall apart quickly as maintaining them is a challenge.
India has maintained that the military conflict with Pakistan ended in May through a ceasefire sought by Islamabad after suffering heavy damage. Pakistan, however, echoed Trump’s claim, giving the US leader credit for gaining his attention.
‘Ceasefire has to be maintained, which is very difficult. The U.S keeps an eye on what is happening between India and Pakistan every single day,’ says Marco Rubio on NBC.
This is a big admission & Munir starting another skirmish is a possibility. pic.twitter.com/d81LPNrjnH
— Atishay Jain (@AtishayyJain96) August 17, 2025
“One of the complications of ceasefires is maintaining them, which is very difficult. Every single day, we are keeping an eye on what is happening between Pakistan and India,” Rubio said.
Speaking in the context of the Russia-Ukraine truce deal, he said, “the only way to have a ceasefire is for both sides to agree to stop firing at one another. And the Russians just haven’t agreed to that.”
“Ceasefires can fall apart very quickly, especially after a three-and-a-half-year war (in Ukraine) like what we’re facing now, but I don’t think anyone disagrees that the ideal here, what we’re aiming for is not some permanent ceasefire. What we’re aiming for here is a peace deal so there’s not a war now and there’s not a war in the future,” Rubio added.
In a separate interview with Fox Business, Rubio again mentioned the recent conflict between India and Pakistan that President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed he solved.
“And I think we are very fortunate and blessed and should be thankful to have a President who has made peace and the achievement of peace a priority of his administration. We’ve seen it in Cambodia and Thailand. We’ve seen it in India-Pakistan. We’ve seen it in Rwanda and the DRC. And we’re going to continue to pursue any opportunities we can find to bring about peace in the world,” Rubio said.
Trump’s Ceasefire Claim
Since May 10, when Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim about 40 times that he “helped settle” the tensions between India and Pakistan and that he told the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours that America will do a “lot of trade” with them if they stopped the conflict.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said in Parliament that no leader of any country asked India to stop Operation Sindoor. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has categorically said there was no third-party intervention in bringing about a ceasefire with Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, asserting that the halting of the military action was also not linked to trade, as claimed by Trump.
On the day of his summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, Trump repeated multiple times within hours his claim that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan, as well as spoke about Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil.
“Look at India. Take a look at India and Pakistan. They were shooting down aeroplanes already, and that would have been maybe nuclear. I would have said it was going to go nuclear, and I was able to get it done. Number one is life, and number two is everything else. Wars are very bad, and if you can avoid them, and I seem to have an ability to end them, to get people together, I use the power of the United States,” Trump had said.
On the contrary, to curry favour, Islamabad has been singing the US tune, giving Trump credit for the truce deal with India. Since then, Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir has visited the US twice, with Washington announcing an Oil deal with Islamabad.