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16th October 2025
07:35am BST
US President Trump claimed the import taxes paid by Americans have helped end "most" of the seven wars he claims to have "solved" since returning to office.
Trump claimed during a press conference on Wednesday in the Oval Office alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and other Department of Justice officials, who praised the Trump administration’s crackdown on violent crime during the summer, per The Independent.
The claim followed a reporter asking Trump if he intends to escalate his ongoing trade war with China if his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Korea next month doesn't go as planned.
Trump danced around the question and instead started to defend his use of tariffs, which he often claims are paid by foreign countries rather than American importers.
Trump said: "If we didn't have tariffs, we would be exposed as being a nothing. We would have no defence ... if we don't have tariffs, we're not going to have national security."
He then presented an example of how he'd been negotiating a trade deal with "Iran and Pakistan", however, apparently meaning to say "India and Pakistan". He claimed both countries wanted to "negotiate much differently" due to his use of tariffs.
"And then I heard that they're shooting at each other, and I said during one of my conversations, are you guys going to go to war? If you go to war. I'm going to put a 200 per cent tariff. I'm going to stop you from doing any business in the United States. I said it to both of them. Within 24 hours, the war ended. That would have been a nuclear war," Trump said.
Trump went on to say that the controversial import taxes, which are currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court due to his use of emergency powers to impose them without intervention by Congress, are very important not only for the revenue they generate for the Treasury from American taxpayers, but because they give him "the power to keep peace" and "The power to be used for good," per The Independent.
"If we don't win that case, we will be a weakened, troubled financial mess for many, many years to come.
"Of the eight wars, I was saying seven of the eight wars, I would say tariffs are directly responsible for me ending six of them, five or six. Without the tariffs, you have wars raging all over the world," Trump added.
