Why is Trump taking aim at BRICS?
Why is BRICS in Mr. Trump's cross-hairs?
Even before he was sworn in as U.S. President for the second time, Donald Trump had made it clear that he saw the BRICS grouping as 'anti-American' and a threat to the dollar that he needed to neutralise. On November 30 last year, Mr. Trump said the U.S. would require BRICS members to commit that they would not create a new BRICS common currency, 'nor back any other currency to replace the mighty U.S. dollar', threatening 100% tariffs on them.
It's a threat he has repeated several times since. Mr. Trump's irritation appears to stem from BRICS declarations in South Africa in 2023 and Russia in 2024, where members that now also include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the UAE, discussed a BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative that aims to facilitate trade and investment within BRICS countries using local currencies and other mechanisms. The initiative built momentum due to the problems Western sanctions on Russia have meant for trading partners in the Global South.
What has the U.S. threatened to do?
Last Sunday (July 6, 2025), just as BRICS leaders gathered in Rio for the 17th BRICS summit, Mr. Trump said in a social media post that any country aligning with BRICS would face a 10% added tariff. The penalty was 'just for that one thing' of being a member, Mr. Trump said later. It is unclear why the tariff rate was dropped to a tenth from the original threat of 100%, and even whether Mr. Trump will go through with the BRICS tariffs along with other reciprocal tariffs planned for August 1. But there seems little doubt that Mr. Trump wants BRICS de-fanged. 'You can tell the (U.S.) President is (upset) every time he looks at the BRICS de-dollarisation effort…(and) Rio didn't help,' said Steve Bannon, Trump's former White House chief strategist, according to Politico magazine.
Editorial | Building resilience: On the 17th Summit of BRICS emerging economies
In addition, the Trump administration has slapped 50% tariffs on Brazil after accusing President Lula da Silva of a 'witch-hunt' against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who faces charges of attempted coup. It has also imposed 30% tariffs on South Africa after accusing it of unequal trade, as well as expressing concerns over the treatment of Afrikaners (White South Africans). Republican Senators close to Mr. Trump also plan to bring a bill called the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 that seeks to place 500% tariffs on imports of oil and sanctioned Russian products, which would hurt Russia, as well as India and China, its two biggest importers.
Are Mr. Trump's concerns valid?
Mr. Trump's concerns about de-dollarisation have been denied by practically every BRICS member. The South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a detailed statement explaining why the BRICS attempt to use national currencies within the grouping is not the same as replacing the dollar as the global standard. While anti-U.S. rhetoric of some BRICS leaders has been harsh, the wording of the BRICS Rio declaration 2025 issued this week does not directly challenge the U.S. or the dollar.
In the operative Paragraph 50, the leaders said they resolved to task ministers of finance and central bank governors 'to continue the discussion on the BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative and acknowledge the progress made by the BRICS Payment Task Force (BPTF) in identifying possible pathways to support the continuation of discussions on the potential for greater interoperability of BRICS payment systems.' Paragraph 13 expressed 'serious concerns' over the rise of unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures but didn't name the U.S.
Where does India stand?
The Modi government, hopeful of clinching a Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., has strenuously objected to Mr. Trump's categorisation of the BRICS as 'anti-American'.
Also read: India will give a 'new form' to BRICS grouping in 2026: PM Modi
In a parliamentary response on December 2, 2024, the MoS (Finance) Pankaj Chaudhury made it clear that the U.S. allegations referred to a report prepared by Russia during its chairmanship of BRICS, where it had spoken of 'possible alternatives relating to cross-border payments' and 'leveraging existing technology to find an alternative currency'.
He added that the report was only 'taken note of' by other BRICS members, not adopted. In March 2025, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was more categorical, saying there is no Indian policy to replace the dollar. He conceded, however, that BRICS members had differences, and there was no unified position of the grouping on the issue.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India Today
19 minutes ago
- India Today
How Trump changed a year after near-assassination: Friends, aides share insights
President Donald Trump was on stage at the Iowa State Fairgrounds earlier this month, kicking off the country's 250th anniversary celebration, when he heard what sounded like fireworks in the distance.'Did I hear what I think I heard?' Trump remarked as he spoke from behind a wall of thick, bulletproof glass. 'Don't worry, it's only fireworks. I hope. Famous last words,' he quipped, drawing laughs and always have to think positive,' he went on. 'I didn't like that sound, either.' The comments, just days before the first anniversary of Trump's near-assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, served as a stark reminder of the lingering impact of the day when a gunman opened fire at a campaign rally, grazing Trump's ear and killing one of his supporters in the attack dramatically upended the 2024 campaign and launched a frenzied 10-day stretch that included Trump's triumphant arrival at the Republican National Convention with a bandaged ear, President Joe Biden's decision to abandon his reelection bid and the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as his year after coming millimeters from a very different outcome, Trump, according to friends and aides, is still the same Trump. But they see signs, beyond being on higher alert on stage, that his brush with death did change him in some ways: He is more attentive and more grateful, they say, and speaks openly about how he believes he was saved by God to save the country and serve a second term, making him even more dug in on achieving his far-reaching agenda.'I think it's always in the back of his mind,' said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a longtime friend and ally who was in close touch with Trump after the shooting and joined him that night in New Jersey after he was treated at a Pennsylvania hospital. 'He's still a rough and tumble guy, you know. He hasn't become a Zen Buddhist. But I think he is, I'll say this, more appreciative. He's more attentive to his friends,' he said, pointing to Trump sending him a message on his birthday earlier this added: 'It's just a miracle he's not dead. He definitely was a man who believed he had a second lease on life.'CONSTANT REMINDERSWhile many who survive traumatic events try to block them from memory, Trump has instead surrounded himself with memorabilia commemorating one of the darkest episodes in modern political history. He's decorated the White House and his golf clubs with art pieces depicting the moment after the shooting when he stood up, thrust his fist dramatically in the air and chanted, 'Fight, fight, fight!'A painting of the scene now hangs prominently in the foyer of the White House State Floor near the staircase to the president's residence. Earlier this year, he began displaying a bronze sculpture of the tableau in the Oval Office on a side table next to the Resolute while he said in his speech at the Republican convention that he would only talk about what had happened once, he often shares the story of how he turned his head at just the right moment to show off his 'all-time favorite chart in history' of southern border crossings that he credits for saving his a press conference in the White House briefing room last month, he acknowledged lingering physical effects from the shooting.'I get that throbbing feeling every once in a while,' he said, gesturing to his ear. 'But you know what, that's OK. This is a dangerous business. What I do is a dangerous business.'Trump will spend Sunday's anniversary attending the FIFA Club World Cup soccer final in East Rutherford, New DIVINE INTERVENTIONTrump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who as his then-campaign chief was with him at the rally, said in a podcast interview released last week that Trump walked away from the shooting believing he had been spared for a would say I think he believes that he was saved. I do. And he would never — even if he thought it before, I don't think he would have admitted it. And he will now,' she told 'Pod Force One.'She, too credited divine intervention. The chart, she noted, 'was always the last chart in the rotation. And it was always on the other side. So to have him ask for that chart eight minutes in, and to have it come on the side that is opposite, caused him to look in a different direction and lift his head just a little because it was higher. And that just doesn't happen because it happened. It happened because, I believe, God wanted him to live.'As a result, she said, when Trump says things that 'are perfunctory — every president says 'God bless America' — well, it's more profound with him now, and it's more personal.'She also credited the attack with helping change public perceptions of Trump during the campaign.'For the American public to see a person who was such a fighter as he was that day, I think, as awful and tragic as it might have been, it turned out to be something that showed people his character. And that's helpful,' she know, I have an obligation to do a good job, I feel, because I was really saved,' Trump told Fox News Friday. 'I owe a lot. And I think — I hope — the reason I was saved was to save our country.'Roger Stone, a longtime friend and informal adviser, noted that Trump has had other brushes with death, including a last-minute decision not to board a helicopter to Atlantic City that crashed in 1989 and another near-assassination two months after Butler when US Secret Service agents spotted a man pointing a rifle through the fence near where Trump was said he's found the president 'to be more serene and more determined after the attempt on his life' in Butler.'He told me directly that he believed he was spared by God for the purpose of restoring the nation to greatness, and that he believes deeply that he is protected now by the Lord,' he Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, agreed.'I think for people who know the president, it is commonly believed that it changed him. I mean, how could it not? Imagine if you were who he was and if you don't turn your head at that instant,' he said. 'He knew he was lucky to be alive.'advertisementGiven how close Trump came to a very different outcome, Reed said, 'it's hard not to feel on some level that the hand of providence protected him for some greater purpose. And there are people that I've talked to who said they were confident that he would win for that reason. That there must have been a reason.'- Ends
Hindustan Times
20 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Trump's budget cuts for US aid halt HIV vaccine research in South Africa
Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history's deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived. The research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere.(AP/Representational) Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding. The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere. But the $46 million from the U.S. for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world's biggest donor earlier this year as President Donald Trump announced a focus on priorities at home. South Africa hit hard by aid cuts South Africa has been hit especially hard because of Trump's baseless claims about the targeting of the country's white Afrikaner minority. The country had been receiving about $400 million a year via USAID and the HIV-focused PEPFAR. Now that's gone. Glenda Grey, who heads the Brilliant program, said the African continent has been vital to the development of HIV medication, and the U.S. cuts threaten its capability to do such work in the future. Significant advances have included clinical trials for lenacapavir, the world's only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One study to show its efficacy involved young South Africans. 'We do the trials better, faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and so without South Africa as part of these programs, the world, in my opinion, is much poorer,' Gray said. She noted that during the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa played a crucial role by testing the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines, and South African scientists' genomic surveillance led to the identification of an important variant. Labs empty and thousands are laid off A team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand has been part of the unit developing the HIV vaccines for the trials. Inside the Wits laboratory, technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was among the young people in white gowns working on samples, but she may soon be out of a job. Her position is grant-funded. She uses her salary to support her family and fund her studies in a country where youth unemployment hovers around 46%. 'It's very sad and devastating, honestly," she said of the U.S. cuts and overall uncertainty. 'We'll also miss out collaborating with other scientists across the continent.' Professor Abdullah Ely leads the team of researchers. He said the work had promising results indicating that the vaccines were producing an immune response. But now that momentum, he said, has 'all kind of had to come to a halt.' The BRILLIANT program is scrambling to find money to save the project. The purchase of key equipment has stopped. South Africa's health department says about 100 researchers for that program and others related to HIV have been laid off. Funding for postdoctoral students involved in experiments for the projects is at risk. South Africa's government has estimated that universities and science councils could lose about $107 million in U.S. research funding over the next five years due to the aid cuts, which affect not only work on HIV but also tuberculosis — another disease with a high number of cases in the country. Less money, and less data on what's affected South Africa's government has said it will be very difficult to find funding to replace the U.S. support. And now the number of HIV infections will grow. Medication is more difficult to obtain. At least 8,000 health workers in South Africa's HIV program have already been laid off, the government has said. Also gone are the data collectors who tracked patients and their care, as well as HIV counselors who could reach vulnerable patients in rural communities. For researchers, Universities South Africa, an umbrella body, has applied to the national treasury for over $110 million for projects at some of the largest schools. During a visit to South Africa in June, UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima was well aware of the stakes, and the lives at risk, as research and health care struggle in South Africa and across Africa at large. Other countries that were highly dependent on U.S. funding including Zambia, Nigeria, Burundi and Ivory Coast are already increasing their own resources, she said. 'But let's be clear, what they are putting down will not be funding in the same way that the American resources were funding," Byanyima said.
Mint
20 minutes ago
- Mint
Market Resilience Challenged by Trump's Weekend Tariff Salvo
Financial markets, which have shown increasing insensitivity to tariff threats from the US, will face a test at the Monday open after President Donald Trump declared a 30% rate for the European Union and Mexico effective Aug. 1. Trump has ratcheted up trade measures, promising that more tariffs are coming to everyone from Canada to Brazil to Algeria and inviting trading partners to negotiate further. Despite warnings of complacency from the likes of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, investors have so far behaved as if they're counting on the US president to back down, having seen previous U-turns from his administration. 'Investors shouldn't bank on Trump only bluffing with the 30% tariff threat on EU goods,' Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, wrote in an email. 'That level of tariffs is punitive, but it likely hurts them more than the US, so the clock is ticking.' Having set a record high in recent days, Bitcoin, which trades through the weekend, was little moved after the latest Trump missives. Currency markets will give another indication of the impact on global risk appetite when they resume trading at 5 a.m. Sydney time. The euro touched its strongest level against the dollar since 2021 this month as investors assessed the region's relative growth prospects. The EU had been trying to conclude a tentative deal with the US to stave off higher tariffs, but Trump's letter punctured the recent optimism in Brussels. The US president did, however, leave an opening for additional adjustments. 'As usual, there are many conditions and clauses that can get these rates reduced,' Jacobsen wrote. 'That's probably why the market might not like the tariff talk, but it's not panicking about it either.' Financial markets have been struggling with how to price in the on-again, off-again tariff campaign instigated by Trump so far in his second term. While markets responded to the April 2 'Liberation Day' announcements by selling risk assets and even US Treasuries, those moves have now almost all reversed as the president delayed many of his threatened levies. Even when Trump said that Aug. 1 would be a hard deadline, markets reacted as if that date was still negotiable. They did show some signs of caution Friday, when stocks fell from all-time highs as Trump intensified his trade offensive, and the dollar rallied for its best week since February. In his letter to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Trump said the country has been 'helping me secure the border,' but added that it wasn't enough. The US doesn't intend to apply the 30% rate to USMCA-compliant goods, according to a White House official. The Mexican peso set a one-year high of 18.5525 versus the dollar on July 9. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
