Donald Trump's administration is pushing to prevent India's missile strikes against Pakistan, thus spiraling the nuclear standoff between the two countries and proposing to mediate the first international crisis since its inauguration.
The U.S. president said he hopes "they can stop now."
“If I could do any help, I’ll be there,” he said Wednesday. “My position is that I’m all getting along well, I know all very well and I want to see them resolve it.”
India and Pakistan face the worst conflict in two decades after India and Pakistan hit the so-called "terrorist infrastructure" site in New Delhi, and Islamabad said it shot down Indian aircraft and promised retaliation against missile strikes.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with his Saudi counterparts separately on Wednesday to discuss how to weaken the conflict.
But while the United States acted as a mediator in the previous crisis in South Asia, creating a calming influence that helped avoid a complete war, Washington could be distracted by Ukraine and Gaza to be unable to resolve the Indian-Pakistan conflict in the early stages.
Experts say news in Washington has been inconsistent since the attack. The United States strongly condemns the trigger for the Indian missile attack - a terrorist attack on Pahargam in Kashmir's disputed territory on April 22, killing 26 people.
But in the days following the attack, Rubio urged the Indian and Pakistani governments to work together to “reduce tensions” and “maintain peace and security in South Asia.”
Tanvi Madan, a South Asia expert at the Brookings Institution, said things were not going well in New Delhi. "When this happens, in India, both sides call for both sides to be demoted, which is a demand for restraint from India, which is not what the United States expects from Israel after the terrorist attacks," she said.
Meanwhile, India said that in a May 1 appeal between US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, Washington “reaffirmed the strong support of the U.S. government in India’s fight against terrorism” and “supported India’s defense of its rights”.
Madan said this hints at the green light of India's revenge.
Then, three days after the incident, Trump noted that the two countries would “make it figure out one way or another”, adding: “There is a lot of tension between Pakistan and India, but there will always be.”
Moeed Yusuf, a senior fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center think tank and former national security adviser for Pakistan, said Washington's approach to tensions caused by the April 22 terrorist attacks was more "lost motivation" than previous crises.
"They may have calculated that others will (mediate), no one will do it," Yousuf said. "But there is no other country that can force India and Pakistan to downgrade, except the United States."
Yusuf said the United States has "choreographed diplomatic efforts" to resolve previous disputes between the two countries, and even non-U.S. allies such as Russia and China have "fallen into the initiative." But it is not clear whether the same will happen this time.
The conflict is because the United States is trying to deepen its ties with India and Pakistan. New Delhi and Washington have an expanding strategy, defense and technology partnership, primarily to balance China, and the two countries negotiate a bilateral trade agreement to withstand the threat of Trump's 26% "reciprocal" tariffs on Indian goods.
India has done its best to make the United States understand the missile attack. Indian government sources said that Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval spoke with his colleagues shortly after he spoke with Rubio and his conversations in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Japan.
Traditionally, Pakistan has been a key buyer of U.S. military hardware and a regional security partner, although that role has been declining since the Taliban provided Western-supported government in Afghanistan in 2021.
Pakistan's Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told the Financial Times on Wednesday that his country will welcome the United States and other partners in mediating "any role" in tensions with India.
“The United States is a very, very important strategic partner,” he said. “We welcome any of our partners … to come in and help become an independent arbitrator at this point in time.
Other reports by Humza Jilani in Islamabad