Rama Krishna Sangem
Donald Trump is unhappy with BRICS group that just held its 17th summit in Brazil. Five founding countries and six others who turned up for the meeting are obviously the target of Trump. India too is among the BRICS countries. US President Trump has announced an additional 10 per cent tariff on countries aligning with the group’s “Anti-American policies”. “There will be no exceptions…” Trump said Sunday night on Truth Social.
The President did not say what these ‘anti-American policies’ are or specify which of the group’s policies he was referring to, although six months ago he did threaten the group with 100 per cent tariffs if they attempted to replace the US dollar as the dominant currency for international trade. That threat had quite the opposite effect; it pushed BRICS nations into developing local payment systems and other instruments to facilitate commerce and investment between each other.
That, in turn, was after Russia called for the dollar’s role in global finance to be ‘re-assessed’, inviting a sharp, if petulant, reply from Trump. “There is no chance BRICS will replace the US Dollar in International Trade… any Country that tries should say hello to Tariffs, and goodbye to America!”
Brasil President Lula da Silva called it “very mistaken and very irresponsible”. “The world has changed. We don’t want an emperor. We are sovereign countries,” he told a news conference Monday. He doubled down on the quest to reduce dependence on the dollar – one of the BRICS’ long-term goals – and said there was “no going back” on this point, suggesting the process of selecting an alternate currency had already begun and would continue “step by step”.
China, in a protracted tariff war of its own with the US, offered a softer counter, telling Trump “trade and tariff wars have no winners and protectionism offers no way forward”. South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and Bolivia’s Luis Arce also spoke out, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the US had “flagrantly abused” its position of power in the world trade system.
What’s BRICS stand?
In a joint statement after a two-day summit in Brasil, BRICS leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said, “We voice serious concerns about the rise of unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures which distort trade and are inconsistent with WTO (World Trade Organization) rules.” The statement included more references to the “increasing use of tariffs in global trade”. For now, one thing is clear – that BRICS countries are going to stay together and strong on their national interests, irrespective of Trump’s warnings of higher tariffs.
