Severe setback to India's diplomacy: Congress on US panel's 'Pak success' claim in report

The Congress on Thursday described a US commission report mentioning "Pakistan's military success over India" in a four-day clash as "yet another severe setback" to India's diplomacy and asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Ministry of External Affairs would register their objections to it.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also took a swipe at the government over US President Donald Trump repeating his claim about stopping the India-Pakistan conflict.

He said the US President has once again trumpeted for the 61st time the claim that he "brought an end to Operation Sindoor by threatening to impose tariffs of 350 per cent on India".

The party's communications in-charge said the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has just submitted its annual report to the US Congress. The commission set up jointly by the US Senate and House of Representatives has 12 independent members, Ramesh pointed out.

"The 2025 Annual Report is almost 800 pages long. The sections on pages 108 and 109 are simply astonishing and beyond understanding. It describes the Pahalgam terror attack of April 2025, orchestrated by Pakistan as an 'insurgent attack'," Ramesh said. "It speaks of 'Pakistan's military success over India' in the four-day clash," he said on X.

"President Trump has claimed 60 times (so far) that he had halted Operation Sindoor. The PM has kept completely quiet. Now comes this report of the US-China Economic and Security Commission of the US Congress that is simply unacceptable to India," Ramesh said.

Will the Prime Minister and the MEA register their objections and protest, he posted.

"Our diplomacy has suffered yet another severe setback," Ramesh claimed and shared the screenshot of the relevant pages of the report on X.

"China's role in the May 7-10, 2025, clash between Pakistan's and India's militaries drew global attention as Pakistan's military relied upon Chinese weaponry and reportedly leveraged Chinese intelligence. During the clash, triggered by India's response to a deadly insurgent attack that killed 26 civilians, both countries attacked targets farther into one another's territories than at any time in 50 years," the report said.

It went on to say, "Pakistan's military success over India in its four-day clash showcased Chinese weaponry. While characterisation of this conflict as a 'proxy war' may overstate China's role as an instigator, Beijing opportunistically leveraged the conflict to test and advertise the sophistication of its weapons, useful in the contexts of its ongoing border tensions with India and its expanding defence industry goals."

Trump also claimed that Prime Minister Modi had called him to say "we're not going to go to war".

"I'm good at settling disputes, and I've always been. I've done very well with that over the years, even before this. I was talking about the different wars... India, Pakistan... they were going to go at it, nuclear weapons," Trump said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the US-Saudi Investment Forum attended by visiting Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, Trump said that he told the two nuclear-armed neighbours that they "can go at it, but I'm putting a 350 per cent tariff on each country. No more trade with the United States."

Claiming that both India and Pakistan told him not to do it, Trump said he told them, "I'm going to do it. Come back to me and I'll take it down. But I'm not going to have you guys shooting nuclear weapons at each other, killing millions of people and having the nuclear dust floating over Los Angeles. I'm not going to do it."

Trump then said that he was "all set" and told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that he would put a 350 per cent tariff to settle (the conflict), and added that if the countries stopped the war, "we'll make a nice trade deal", as they are in the midst of the negotiations for the trade deal.

"No other president would have done that... I used tariffs to settle all these wars, not all of them. Five of the eight were settled because of the economy, because of trade, because of tariffs," Trump said. "I did this."

He added that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called him and thanked him in front of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles for saving millions of lives.

Trump then claimed that he "got a call from Prime Minister Modi saying, 'we're done'. I said, 'You're done with what?' Trump claimed that Modi replied, "We're not going to go to war."

The US President claimed he then thanked Modi and said, "Let's make a deal."