May 12, 2025 • 18 mins
Last week, India and Pakistan saw the worst fighting in half a century — and came close to an all-out war. But the conflict came to an uneasy and sudden halt after Donald Trump declared the two countries reached a ceasefire.
On today’s Big Take Asia Podcast, Rebecca Choong Wilkins talks to Bloomberg’s Dan Strumpf about how the deadly clashes and ceasefire unfolded and the implications of US mediation in the decades-old conflict.
Read more: Trump Truce Leaves India Furious, Pakistan Elated as Risks Loom
Further listening: The Rise of Modi, Part 1: Why India’s Leader Is So Popular – and Polarizing
The Rise of Modi, Part 2: How India’s Leader Came Back From the Brink
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Tensions between India and Pakistan that threatened to boil over
during the weekend have now settled back to a simmer.
The two countries have been striking at targets inside each
other's borders since last Wednesday. It's the worst fighting between
these two nuclear powers in half a century. But now
they appear to have reached a fragile truce.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So what you saw with this conflict was really the
closest that India and Pakistan have come to it all
at war since possibly the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Dan Strump is a Bloomberg senior reporter based in India's
capital of New Delhi. He says the hostilities are the
latest phase of a long standing territorial dispute over the
border region of Jammu and Kashmir.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
It's one of the most contested regions the world. Really,
Both India and Pakistan have claimed this region as their
own going back to the time of independence.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
But what might look to outsiders like a regional issue
has serious international implications. Both Indian and Pakistan are nuclear powers.
India's one of the world's largest economies and the most populous.
Then there's China, which has been working to grow its
influence in the region. These factors appear to have drawn
(01:28):
in the Trump administration. US President Donald Trump surprised the
world by announcing a ceasefire in a social media post
over the weekend, but not everyone's happy about that. The
surprise announcement may have upstaged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
There's a real sort of sense of dismay and anger
that you see among Indian politicians and ordinary Indians as well.
This really throws a ranch in Modi's political standing right
now in India.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today in the show,
a conversation between Rebecca Chung Wilkins and Bloomberg reporter Dan
Strump about the increasingly intense conflict between India and Pakistan,
(02:26):
how the conflict changed in recent days, and the roles
the US and China have been playing in the background.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
India said that it has conducted military strikes in Pakistan
and Pakistan, on the other hand, said they have downed
five Indian fighter jet planes and this is an escalation
of the two nuclear armed nations. The tensions have been
similar for the last few days ever since twenty six
people were killed.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Dan, Hello, been a very busy few weeks for you.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's been very busy for all of us here in
India and Pakistan.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
And I want to get straight into the conflict and
what's been keeping you so busy?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So the current conflict goes back about three weeks on
April twenty second to a terrible attack that took place
in Indian Administered Kashmir in a region known as Pahalgam,
which is a sort of beautiful mountainous meadow region in Kashmir.
A large group of tourists were vacationing in the meadow
(03:35):
and armed gunmen came out of the forest and gunned
down twenty six people. All of them were civilians, mostly tourists,
mostly Indians. So in the immediate aftermath of this event,
India very quickly blamed Pakistan for the disaster in Kashmir.
Pakistan very quickly denied any involvement.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
And where exactly is Kashmir because geography really matters In this.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Case, the geography does really matter. So Kashmir is a
large region that sits on the northern tip of India
bordering Pakistan, and it's about the size of the UK.
It's one of the most contested regions in the world. Really,
both India and Pakistan have claimed this region as their
own going back to the time of independence.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
And dan, how did Kashmir become so contentious between India
and Pakistan?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So the conflict essentially dates back to the independence of
both countries from the British in nineteen forty seven. The
British colonial administration essentially left the region in a hurry,
leaving a whole host of territorial disputes unresolved, and the
(04:50):
most front dispute of all came to be Kashmir, and
Kashmir became this sort of touching off point for the
very first war that the two countries fought immediately after independence,
and it's been a source of multiple wars over the
years ever since.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
How did we see the two sides respond in the
immediate aftermath of this event, So.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
It's about two weeks of posturing. Nothing really happened until
about a week ago when India announced that it had
undertaken a series of air strikes on the Pakistani side
of Kashmir. Pakistan responded with its own strikes. The two
sides traded artillery fire, small arms fire, and eventually missile
(05:35):
fire and drone and aircraft attacks were involved as well
on both sides.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Right, So that was the military response we've seen from
the two sides. Were there any changes in terms of
diplomacy and policymaking.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
So in addition to military strikes, India suspended what's known
as the Indus Waters Treaty, which is a treaty that
has satually governs the use of the Indus River and
its vast number of tributaries. It's so essential to both
of these countries their reliance on the water that comes
(06:12):
from this vast sort of river basin. After India suspended
this treaty, that really raised the fears that the flow
of water from India to Pakistan, which lies downstream from India,
could be under threat. And what Pakistan said very quickly
after the suspension of this treaty was that if its
(06:33):
water flow is threatened, it would treat that as an
act of war.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
You mentioned that Kashmir is a region no stranger to
conflicts and skirmishes. So we've seen violence throughout the two
thousands and further escalations in twenty nineteen. How is this
time different from what we've seen in the past.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I think it's important for us to point out that
what we saw in the last week or so is
far from the sort of full blown wars that to
find the conflicts that took place in the last century.
Over Kashmir, what we saw was a major escalation in
violence in comparison to what we've seen in recent decades.
(07:13):
This conflict hit much closer to populated civilian areas, hit
much closer to some of the locations of some of
the highest levels of government, at least on the Pakistani side.
On the military side, you saw air skirmishes taking place
outside of Kashmir along the conventional border between Pakistan and India.
(07:36):
You saw artillery fire traded on both sides. You saw
the introduction of new types of weaponry, things like Kamakazi drones,
Chinese made fighter jets on the Pakistani side, French made
fighter jets on the Indian side. What several people have
(07:57):
told us is essentially this conflict resets the rules of
the game. It expands the theater around which future conflicts
might take place and also expands the range of weaponry
that might be involved.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Now, tell us about the ceasefire. When did it happen
and how was it actually reached.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So this ceasefire as we know it together over really
just the course of a few hours of phone calls
starting from the White House on Friday and Saturday and
into the weekend. And those phone calls took place between
Marco Rubio and Vice President J. D. Vance and a
number of high level players on the both Indian and
Pakistani side. What took everybody by surprise was Trump's post
(08:40):
on truth social on Saturday morning in Washington Saturday afternoon
here announcing that a ceasefire had taken place and it
was a done deal.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
After the break, Rebecca and Dan talk about India's reaction
to the truce and to Trump's announcement, and what ruled
China is played in this conflict. India and Pakistan aren't
(09:13):
the only countries disputing control of Kashmir. China claims a
part of the region as well, and as a conflict
between Indian and Pakistan unfolded in the back of everyone's
minds have been the ongoing trade negotiations that both China
and India are conducting with the US. Meanwhile, the US
approach to the tensions between India and Pakistan has been inconsistent.
(09:37):
Last week, Vice President Jay d Vance told Fox News
that the conflict was quote fundamentally none of our business.
Then Trump surprised everyone over the weekend by announcing a ceasefire.
On social media. Rebecca Chung Wilkins asked Bloomberg Dan Strump
how each side is reacting to foreign intervention.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Each side views the prospect of foreign intervention in this
conflict a little bit differently. On the Indian side, there
has been a very deep seated resistance to any foreign
intervention in the Kashmir conflict. India have used this conflict
as an issue between Pakistan and India to be sorted
(10:18):
out bilaterally. And this is a position that goes back
decades now, and that in some part is because India
has viewed foreign intervention and foreign mediation in this conflict
as being something that might be sympathetic to Pakistan. I
think the Indian side is finding it hard to not
(10:40):
see this as having lost some ground in a way
by especially being backed into accepting some kind of US
role in any kind of ceasepire that is now taking hold.
So in that sense, there's a real sort of sense
of dismay and anger that you see among Indian politicians
(11:04):
and ordinary Indians as well.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
And conversely, how was the US's involvement viewed by Pakistan Now?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Pakistan, of course, has taken the opposite perspective. It wants
foreign intervention in this conflict. It wants foreign brokerage and
foreign mediation and has sought as much in various forums
around the world, including the United Nation, the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation, and directly appealing to third party countries as
(11:32):
well for mediation in this conflict. There's a real sense
of jubilation and that by bringing in the third party
like the United States, this broker a ceasefire, that this
is a real victory for Pakistan. And now the two
sides have future issues to discuss, and there's going to
(11:53):
be third parties mediating and potentially laying a roadmap for
conversations that could take place over well who knows how long.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Now, one of the reasons why the US felt like
they had to intervene was because they were worried that
things could take a term for the worst if neither
side ended up de escalating. Can you tell us why
the US was so concerned about a full scale war
breaking out in this part of the world.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So this conflict for decades now has taken place against
the backdrop of possible nuclear weapons use. Both countries have
nuclear weapons. India maintains a no first strike rule. Pakistan
is ambiguous on how it might or might not use
(12:42):
nuclear weapons. At the same time, is a very strong
incentive for neither country to push the conflict too far.
It's also a reason why you do see foreign powers
who might not otherwise be welcome or have any business
in this conflict stick their nose in, like we just
saw in just the last couple of days. So it
(13:04):
really is the greatest fear that underlies this whole conflict.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
So we're speaking on Monday, May the twelfth. Now, now,
what are the economic implications for both countries if the
ceasefire doesn't hold.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Pakistan remains mired in a real economic crisis and is
in the midst of trying to obtain access to I
think around seven billion dollars worth of loans from the
International Monetary Fund and it badly needs that money. Now,
on the Indian side, this conflict really was not a priority.
(13:39):
India was under the impression that it was largely not
quite settled, but a conflict that was more or less
under control and wasn't really at risk of flaring up again.
And so as a result, you had India really turning
its attention elsewhere. Mody had really spent a lot of
time in the last couple of years trying to bolster
(13:59):
relationship with Europe, with the Middle East, of course, with
the US, and arguably the most pressing item on Modi's
international agenda was negotiating a trade deal with the US
until this conflict broke out. And on the data that
the conflict broke out, Mody was actually hosting Vice President JD.
Vance in India, where the two talked about a number
(14:22):
of things, but talked about this trade deal that the
two countries are trying to hammer out. And it's been
a real distraction, you could say, for both sides, which
is probably a pretty good incentive for the two to
also hold the ceasefire and try to put the conflict
behind them at least for now.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
You mentioned Vice President jd Vance was in India during
the Kashmir attack. He visited India actually with his family
and dined with Prime Minister Modi at his residence, and
last week he said that the conflict was fundamentally none
of the US's business, but that then did appear to change.
So how should we see the US in this relationship.
(14:59):
Do you see the the US taking a backseat if
this conflict develops further, or do you see it taking
a more interventionist role from here?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
It's hard to see how the US, how the Trump
administration can take a backseat. Now after all of the
sort of tweets and posts and proclamations online, I think
the US has fully inserted itself into this conflict, whether
it wants to be or not. And that is potentially
a problem for the US and for the Trump White House,
(15:28):
which is really stretching itself as it tries to play
peacemaker in all these different conflicts around the world. Trump,
of course, pledged from day one to solve the Ukraine
Russia conflict that's still ongoing. The conflict in Gaza is
still ongoing. And now you've got so I'm sticking his
nose into this conflict as well. You know, now it
(15:51):
remains to be seen what shape exactly this purported US
mediation is going to take. And as I said, a
lot of people on the Indian side have really just
rejected the idea of US intervention at all. So we'll
just have to see exactly how this looks.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
What about China, who has been such a supporter of Pakistan,
where do you see its role potentially in this dynamic.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
China has been one of those countries that from the
beginning has been calling for both sides to de escalate,
but it's also made very clear that it is on
the side of Pakistan in this dispute, and that backing
has really increased in the last couple of years in
the form of foreign investment in weapons sales as well.
And you saw the introduction of some of that on
(16:36):
the battlefield in just the last couple of days. And
you know, that's a real complicating factor for India because
India and China don't get along. India Pakistan don't get along,
the US and China don't get along, and now you
have the US in India increasingly getting along. So this
is very quickly turning into a sort of However, many
(16:57):
ways fight in this part of the world, so it
does make the world look, at least on the margin,
a little bit more risky and a little bit more dangerous.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Dan, thank you so much for making time. Thanks for
joining us.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
wan ha. This episode was produced by Young Young and
Naomi mm. It was edited by Patti Hirsh and Daniel
Tankate in fact check by Bloomberg's editorial team. It was
mixed and sound designed by Alex Suguiera. Our senior producer
is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponzo. Our
deputy executive producer is Julia Weaver. Our executive producer is
(17:39):
Nicole Beemster Bower. Sage Bowman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts.
If you like this episode, make sure to subscribe and
review The Big Take Asia wherever you listen to podcasts.
It really helps people find the show. Thanks for listening.
See you next time.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Tensions between India and Pakistan that threatened to boil over
during the weekend have now settled back to a simmer.
The two countries have been striking at targets inside each
other's borders since last Wednesday. It's the worst fighting between
these two nuclear powers in half a century. But now
they appear to have reached a fragile truce.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So what you saw with this conflict was really the
closest that India and Pakistan have come to it all
at war since possibly the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Dan Strump is a Bloomberg senior reporter based in India's
capital of New Delhi. He says the hostilities are the
latest phase of a long standing territorial dispute over the
border region of Jammu and Kashmir.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
It's one of the most contested regions the world. Really,
Both India and Pakistan have claimed this region as their
own going back to the time of independence.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
But what might look to outsiders like a regional issue
has serious international implications. Both Indian and Pakistan are nuclear powers.
India's one of the world's largest economies and the most populous.
Then there's China, which has been working to grow its
influence in the region. These factors appear to have drawn
(01:28):
in the Trump administration. US President Donald Trump surprised the
world by announcing a ceasefire in a social media post
over the weekend, but not everyone's happy about that. The
surprise announcement may have upstaged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
There's a real sort of sense of dismay and anger
that you see among Indian politicians and ordinary Indians as well.
This really throws a ranch in Modi's political standing right
now in India.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today in the show,
a conversation between Rebecca Chung Wilkins and Bloomberg reporter Dan
Strump about the increasingly intense conflict between India and Pakistan,
(02:26):
how the conflict changed in recent days, and the roles
the US and China have been playing in the background.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
India said that it has conducted military strikes in Pakistan
and Pakistan, on the other hand, said they have downed
five Indian fighter jet planes and this is an escalation
of the two nuclear armed nations. The tensions have been
similar for the last few days ever since twenty six
people were killed.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Dan, Hello, been a very busy few weeks for you.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's been very busy for all of us here in
India and Pakistan.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
And I want to get straight into the conflict and
what's been keeping you so busy?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So the current conflict goes back about three weeks on
April twenty second to a terrible attack that took place
in Indian Administered Kashmir in a region known as Pahalgam,
which is a sort of beautiful mountainous meadow region in Kashmir.
A large group of tourists were vacationing in the meadow
(03:35):
and armed gunmen came out of the forest and gunned
down twenty six people. All of them were civilians, mostly tourists,
mostly Indians. So in the immediate aftermath of this event,
India very quickly blamed Pakistan for the disaster in Kashmir.
Pakistan very quickly denied any involvement.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
And where exactly is Kashmir because geography really matters In this.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Case, the geography does really matter. So Kashmir is a
large region that sits on the northern tip of India
bordering Pakistan, and it's about the size of the UK.
It's one of the most contested regions in the world. Really,
both India and Pakistan have claimed this region as their
own going back to the time of independence.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
And dan, how did Kashmir become so contentious between India
and Pakistan?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So the conflict essentially dates back to the independence of
both countries from the British in nineteen forty seven. The
British colonial administration essentially left the region in a hurry,
leaving a whole host of territorial disputes unresolved, and the
(04:50):
most front dispute of all came to be Kashmir, and
Kashmir became this sort of touching off point for the
very first war that the two countries fought immediately after independence,
and it's been a source of multiple wars over the
years ever since.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
How did we see the two sides respond in the
immediate aftermath of this event, So.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
It's about two weeks of posturing. Nothing really happened until
about a week ago when India announced that it had
undertaken a series of air strikes on the Pakistani side
of Kashmir. Pakistan responded with its own strikes. The two
sides traded artillery fire, small arms fire, and eventually missile
(05:35):
fire and drone and aircraft attacks were involved as well
on both sides.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Right, So that was the military response we've seen from
the two sides. Were there any changes in terms of
diplomacy and policymaking.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
So in addition to military strikes, India suspended what's known
as the Indus Waters Treaty, which is a treaty that
has satually governs the use of the Indus River and
its vast number of tributaries. It's so essential to both
of these countries their reliance on the water that comes
(06:12):
from this vast sort of river basin. After India suspended
this treaty, that really raised the fears that the flow
of water from India to Pakistan, which lies downstream from India,
could be under threat. And what Pakistan said very quickly
after the suspension of this treaty was that if its
(06:33):
water flow is threatened, it would treat that as an
act of war.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
You mentioned that Kashmir is a region no stranger to
conflicts and skirmishes. So we've seen violence throughout the two
thousands and further escalations in twenty nineteen. How is this
time different from what we've seen in the past.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I think it's important for us to point out that
what we saw in the last week or so is
far from the sort of full blown wars that to
find the conflicts that took place in the last century.
Over Kashmir, what we saw was a major escalation in
violence in comparison to what we've seen in recent decades.
(07:13):
This conflict hit much closer to populated civilian areas, hit
much closer to some of the locations of some of
the highest levels of government, at least on the Pakistani side.
On the military side, you saw air skirmishes taking place
outside of Kashmir along the conventional border between Pakistan and India.
(07:36):
You saw artillery fire traded on both sides. You saw
the introduction of new types of weaponry, things like Kamakazi drones,
Chinese made fighter jets on the Pakistani side, French made
fighter jets on the Indian side. What several people have
(07:57):
told us is essentially this conflict resets the rules of
the game. It expands the theater around which future conflicts
might take place and also expands the range of weaponry
that might be involved.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Now, tell us about the ceasefire. When did it happen
and how was it actually reached.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So this ceasefire as we know it together over really
just the course of a few hours of phone calls
starting from the White House on Friday and Saturday and
into the weekend. And those phone calls took place between
Marco Rubio and Vice President J. D. Vance and a
number of high level players on the both Indian and
Pakistani side. What took everybody by surprise was Trump's post
(08:40):
on truth social on Saturday morning in Washington Saturday afternoon
here announcing that a ceasefire had taken place and it
was a done deal.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
After the break, Rebecca and Dan talk about India's reaction
to the truce and to Trump's announcement, and what ruled
China is played in this conflict. India and Pakistan aren't
(09:13):
the only countries disputing control of Kashmir. China claims a
part of the region as well, and as a conflict
between Indian and Pakistan unfolded in the back of everyone's
minds have been the ongoing trade negotiations that both China
and India are conducting with the US. Meanwhile, the US
approach to the tensions between India and Pakistan has been inconsistent.
(09:37):
Last week, Vice President Jay d Vance told Fox News
that the conflict was quote fundamentally none of our business.
Then Trump surprised everyone over the weekend by announcing a ceasefire.
On social media. Rebecca Chung Wilkins asked Bloomberg Dan Strump
how each side is reacting to foreign intervention.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Each side views the prospect of foreign intervention in this
conflict a little bit differently. On the Indian side, there
has been a very deep seated resistance to any foreign
intervention in the Kashmir conflict. India have used this conflict
as an issue between Pakistan and India to be sorted
(10:18):
out bilaterally. And this is a position that goes back
decades now, and that in some part is because India
has viewed foreign intervention and foreign mediation in this conflict
as being something that might be sympathetic to Pakistan. I
think the Indian side is finding it hard to not
(10:40):
see this as having lost some ground in a way
by especially being backed into accepting some kind of US
role in any kind of ceasepire that is now taking hold.
So in that sense, there's a real sort of sense
of dismay and anger that you see among Indian politicians
(11:04):
and ordinary Indians as well.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
And conversely, how was the US's involvement viewed by Pakistan Now?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Pakistan, of course, has taken the opposite perspective. It wants
foreign intervention in this conflict. It wants foreign brokerage and
foreign mediation and has sought as much in various forums
around the world, including the United Nation, the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation, and directly appealing to third party countries as
(11:32):
well for mediation in this conflict. There's a real sense
of jubilation and that by bringing in the third party
like the United States, this broker a ceasefire, that this
is a real victory for Pakistan. And now the two
sides have future issues to discuss, and there's going to
(11:53):
be third parties mediating and potentially laying a roadmap for
conversations that could take place over well who knows how long.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Now, one of the reasons why the US felt like
they had to intervene was because they were worried that
things could take a term for the worst if neither
side ended up de escalating. Can you tell us why
the US was so concerned about a full scale war
breaking out in this part of the world.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
So this conflict for decades now has taken place against
the backdrop of possible nuclear weapons use. Both countries have
nuclear weapons. India maintains a no first strike rule. Pakistan
is ambiguous on how it might or might not use
(12:42):
nuclear weapons. At the same time, is a very strong
incentive for neither country to push the conflict too far.
It's also a reason why you do see foreign powers
who might not otherwise be welcome or have any business
in this conflict stick their nose in, like we just
saw in just the last couple of days. So it
(13:04):
really is the greatest fear that underlies this whole conflict.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
So we're speaking on Monday, May the twelfth. Now, now,
what are the economic implications for both countries if the
ceasefire doesn't hold.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Pakistan remains mired in a real economic crisis and is
in the midst of trying to obtain access to I
think around seven billion dollars worth of loans from the
International Monetary Fund and it badly needs that money. Now,
on the Indian side, this conflict really was not a priority.
(13:39):
India was under the impression that it was largely not
quite settled, but a conflict that was more or less
under control and wasn't really at risk of flaring up again.
And so as a result, you had India really turning
its attention elsewhere. Mody had really spent a lot of
time in the last couple of years trying to bolster
(13:59):
relationship with Europe, with the Middle East, of course, with
the US, and arguably the most pressing item on Modi's
international agenda was negotiating a trade deal with the US
until this conflict broke out. And on the data that
the conflict broke out, Mody was actually hosting Vice President JD.
Vance in India, where the two talked about a number
(14:22):
of things, but talked about this trade deal that the
two countries are trying to hammer out. And it's been
a real distraction, you could say, for both sides, which
is probably a pretty good incentive for the two to
also hold the ceasefire and try to put the conflict
behind them at least for now.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
You mentioned Vice President jd Vance was in India during
the Kashmir attack. He visited India actually with his family
and dined with Prime Minister Modi at his residence, and
last week he said that the conflict was fundamentally none
of the US's business, but that then did appear to change.
So how should we see the US in this relationship.
(14:59):
Do you see the the US taking a backseat if
this conflict develops further, or do you see it taking
a more interventionist role from here?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
It's hard to see how the US, how the Trump
administration can take a backseat. Now after all of the
sort of tweets and posts and proclamations online, I think
the US has fully inserted itself into this conflict, whether
it wants to be or not. And that is potentially
a problem for the US and for the Trump White House,
(15:28):
which is really stretching itself as it tries to play
peacemaker in all these different conflicts around the world. Trump,
of course, pledged from day one to solve the Ukraine
Russia conflict that's still ongoing. The conflict in Gaza is
still ongoing. And now you've got so I'm sticking his
nose into this conflict as well. You know, now it
(15:51):
remains to be seen what shape exactly this purported US
mediation is going to take. And as I said, a
lot of people on the Indian side have really just
rejected the idea of US intervention at all. So we'll
just have to see exactly how this looks.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
What about China, who has been such a supporter of Pakistan,
where do you see its role potentially in this dynamic.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
China has been one of those countries that from the
beginning has been calling for both sides to de escalate,
but it's also made very clear that it is on
the side of Pakistan in this dispute, and that backing
has really increased in the last couple of years in
the form of foreign investment in weapons sales as well.
And you saw the introduction of some of that on
(16:36):
the battlefield in just the last couple of days. And
you know, that's a real complicating factor for India because
India and China don't get along. India Pakistan don't get along,
the US and China don't get along, and now you
have the US in India increasingly getting along. So this
is very quickly turning into a sort of However, many
(16:57):
ways fight in this part of the world, so it
does make the world look, at least on the margin,
a little bit more risky and a little bit more dangerous.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Dan, thank you so much for making time. Thanks for
joining us.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
wan ha. This episode was produced by Young Young and
Naomi mm. It was edited by Patti Hirsh and Daniel
Tankate in fact check by Bloomberg's editorial team. It was
mixed and sound designed by Alex Suguiera. Our senior producer
is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponzo. Our
deputy executive producer is Julia Weaver. Our executive producer is
(17:39):
Nicole Beemster Bower. Sage Bowman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts.
If you like this episode, make sure to subscribe and
review The Big Take Asia wherever you listen to podcasts.
It really helps people find the show. Thanks for listening.
See you next time.
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