Trump Wields Tariff Threat Against Russia and China-Backed BRICS Trade Alliance
- President-elect Donald Trump is threatening the BRICS Alliance with 100-percent tariffs if it attempts to challenge the dominance of the U.S. dollar in international trade.
President-elect Donald Trump is wielding the threat of tariffs against the BRICS Alliance—a collective of countries including Brazil, Russia , India, China and South Africa—should it make moves to undermine the U.S. dollar by creating its own form of currency.
The group, which has become a “major political force” over the course of the past 20 years, was founded on the objective of building a “counterweight to Western influence” when it comes to the global economy, according to U.S. think tank the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Trump on Saturday took to his preferred platform, Truth Social, to threaten the trade collective with 100-percent tariffs should it challenge U.S. interests abroad by trying to unseat the dollar’s dominance.
“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER. We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs , and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy,” Trump proclaimed.
“They can go find another ‘sucker!’ There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America,” he added.
BRICS appears to be quickly gaining traction; the group invited Egypt, Ethiopia , Iran and the United Arab Emirates to join its ranks in 2023, and they solidified their membership this year. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia are also reportedly considering joining the coalition as a means of divorcing themselves from the dominance of Western financial systems.
The U.S. dollar accounts for more than 58 percent of global foreign exchange reserves, with the Euro coming in a distant second at almost 20 percent. By contrast, the Chinese renminbi accounts for just around 2 percent of the world’s foreign exchange reserves, and “other currencies” outside of those from the U.K., Australia, Canada and Japan represent only 4.25 percent, according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Leaders like Chinese President Xi Jinping , Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have deepened ties through the BRICS framework, finding common ground in their desire to gain more global financial leverage. In late October, Putin hosted the world leaders, along with other BRICS members, at a summit in Kazan, Russia to discuss future economic collaboration across the bloc.
For his part, Putin said the prospect of creating a new currency was not imminently on the table. “Its time has not come yet. We need to be very careful and act gradually, without any rush,” he said at the summit—though he has pushed for the creation of a new cross-border payment system to challenge the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) Global Payments Initiative (GPI), which allows for nearly immediate money transfers between nations.
He’s said that BRICS nations should create their own system for making cross-border payments that would allow them to avoid Western sanctions and tariffs and leverage digital currencies.
Trump’s tariff threat against BRICS—and Russia, by extension—stands in contrast to Putin’s very recent praise of the incoming president, who he said he believes holds the key to the cessation of conflict in Ukraine.
On Thursday, Putin criticized President Joe Biden, telling reporters in Kazakhstan that he has created “additional difficulties” for the next administration by giving Ukraine leeway to fire longer-range U.S. missiles at Russian troops, according to a report from CNN. Putin said he expects the relationship between Russia and the U.S. to improve after Trump is sworn in, saying, “As far as I can imagine, the newly elected president is an intelligent and already quite experienced person. I think he will find a solution.”
Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also rushed in to appease Trump and dismantle the threat he recently made against Canada—specifically, that he would levy duties of 25 percent against the country, along with Mexico, due to what he described as an unbridled flow of “Crime and Drugs” across their borders into the U.S.
Trump dined with Trudeau on Friday evening at Mar-a-Lago, according to Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman. She told CNN that Trudeau was “successful” in convincing the president-elect to come around to the idea that Mexico and Canada should be treated differently given that virtually no fentanyl is being smuggled into U.S. via the Canadian border. U.S. Border Patrol agents have also made far fewer migrant arrests at the Canadian border than the Mexican border, Trudeau reiterated to the president elect.
While Hillman said the meeting was cordial, Trump stopped short of walking back his tariff promise or guaranteeing the security of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement ( USMCA ), which is up for review in July 2026. Speaking about the dinner, Hillman told the news outlet, “I don’t think it could have been better to be frank. Okay, I’ll take that back, I’ll change that. If he obviously said there would be no tariffs that would have been better but there was no realistic expectation of that.”
