In desperate telephone calls President Clinton tried to persuade the Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif not to test his nuclear bombs after India had tested theirs on May 11 and 13. Clinton warned Sharif of the consequences if he ignored him. Clinton would suspend American economic aid, he would put a ban on bank loans to government institutions and use washington's influence to cut off aid from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The American president is supposed to have said, ' If you do this, Nawaz, I have to do this (=impose sanctions) and it will hurt you a lot more than it'll hurt India.' Sharif, however, couldn't help ignoring Clinton's warning, because Sharif faced overwhelming political pressure from his own military chiefs, from opposition figures and from powerful Muslim clerics. They all would have ousted him from office.

Clinton's problem with India and Pakistan is to some degree self-inflicted by the U.S.A. After the end of the cold war Washington decided to export missile technology to China, which has close links to China. With the USA helping China, India's fear of his northern neighbour China increased and China has probably helped Pakistan build up its missile and nuclear capabilities.
This shows that America's policy has again been more concerned with its economic profit than with the world's security.