The Trump administration has told the US Court of International Trade that the President intervened and used trade as a tool to get India and Pakistan to agree to a “tenuous ceasefire”, prompting the Congress to renew its demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi break his silence on Washington’s repeated claims that it had “brokered” peace between New Delhi and Islamabad.

On Wednesday, American political digital newspaper Politico quoted from a court filing by US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick justifying Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs.

“The filing came in response to a lawsuit from a group of small businesses that have flagged financial losses because of Trump’s policies,” Politico reported.

“A ruling that narrows IEEPA would have ripple effects across every domain in which economic instruments are used for strategic effect,” Lutnick’s filing dated May 23 said, adding “for example, India and Pakistan — two nuclear powers engaged in combat operations just 13 days ago — reached a tenuous ceasefire on May 10, 2025”.

The commerce secretary further said the ceasefire was only achieved after President Donald Trump interceded and offered both nations trading access with the US to avert a full-scale war.

“An adverse ruling that constrains presidential power in this case could lead India and Pakistan to question the validity of President Trump’s offer, threatening the security of an entire region and the lives of millions,” he had added.

Though this document is in the public domain, AICC general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh did not directly refer to it while seeking an answer from Modi.

“The Prime Minister should let the country know whether it is true that the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, filed a statement in the New York-based US Court of International Trade on May 23rd, 2025, swearing that President Trump used his tariff power to broker a ‘tenuous ceasefire’ between India and Pakistan and bring about a ‘fragile peace’,” Ramesh posted on X.

He said: “Mr Lutnick follows in the footsteps of President Trump himself who made this assertion 8 times in 11 days in 3 different countries.”

Ramesh added: “US secretary of state Marco Rubio has echoed the same and also mentioned a ‘neutral site’ for talks between India and Pakistan. Pradhan Mantri Chuppi Todo (Prime Minister, break your silence),” he added.

There was no mention of the India-Pakistan dynamic in Rubio’s filing in the same case, though he had in the early days of what Washington described as a “US- brokered ceasefire” said the two countries had agreed to “start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site”.

He has since been saying the US supports direct dialogue between the two countries, though Trump has repeatedly maintained that Washington got India and Pakistan to agree to a “ceasefire”, a word New Delhi has not officially used.

The external affairs ministry has time and again said this was a bilateral issue, maintaining that the cessation of firing was worked out on May 10 between the directors-general of military operations of the two countries during a phone conversation initiated by the Pakistani side.

However, the ministry has remained silent on whether India has registered its objection with the state department to the Trump administration’s repeated claims to the contrary.