Trump issues new threat to BRICS

Russia has said the group is not a rival to the US, but attempts at intimidation won’t be tolerated

President Donald Trump has claimed that BRICS is “fading out fast,” while warning that any attempts by the group to challenge the US dollar will be met with a harsh economic backlash.

Speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump denounced what he called BRICS’ attempts to weaken the dollar. “They wanted to try and take over the dollar, the dominance of the dollar... And I said, anybody that’s in the BRICS consortium of nations, we're going to tariff you 10%.”

Trump stressed that Washington will spare no effort to preserve the dollar’s hegemony. “The reserve currency is so important. You know, if we lost that, that would be like losing a World War.”

Washington “can never let anyone play games,” Trump said, adding that he has decided to “hit them [BRICS] very, very hard.” “If they ever really form in a meaningful way, it will end very quickly,” he said.

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Trump also claimed his threat to impose 10% tariffs on imports from the BRICS had completely derailed the group’s summit in Rio de Janeiro earlier this month. “They had a meeting the following day and almost nobody showed up,” he said.

However, the BRICS summit featured broad participation at the highest level. While China’s President Xi Jinping was absent from the meeting, his country was represented by Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Russian President Vladimir Putin was also absent, but addressed the summit remotely.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, as well as leaders from Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE attended in person.

In October, Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov stated that the share of national currencies in trade among BRICS countries has reached 65%, with the share of the dollar and euro plunging below 30%.

Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained that BRICS countries are exploring dollar alternatives “to shield themselves from US arbitrariness.” 

However, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said that BRICS has never been meant as a rival to the US, although warning that “the language of threats and manipulation… is not the way to speak to members of this group.”