KUALA LUMPUR – US President Donald Trump has repeated his threat of imposing a 100% tariff on BRICS member nations should they attempt to replace the greenback as their reserve currencies, weeks after winning the November 5 presidential elections.
“We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or, they will face 100% tariffs,” Trump said in a statement posted on social media platform Truth Social.
The post is nearly identical to the one he posted on November 30 last year.
Russia – which currently chairs the bloc – had said that any attempt by the superpower nation to compel other countries to use the US dollar would backfire.
The BRICS bloc also comprises Brazil, India, China, South Africa, and a few other countries that joined in the past couple of years. The group added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates in 2023.
Last year, Malaysia and Indonesia were among the 13 countries to become BRICS “partner countries”.
While BRICS members do not have a common currency, long-running discussions on the subject have gained some momentum after the West imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
“There is no chance that BRICS will replace the US dollar in international trade, or anywhere else, and any country that tries should say hello to tariffs, and goodbye to America!” he said.
Trump posted his warning to the BRICS as Canada and Mexico await his decision to follow through on a pledge to impose 25% tariffs on the US’s North American trading partners from February 1.
He intends to use tariffs as a tool to get both countries to help stem the flow of illegal migrants and drugs into the US, particularly fentanyl.
Dollar dominance – the outsized role of the US dollar in the world economy – has strengthened recently, thanks to the robust US economy, tighter monetary policy by the US Federal Reserve, and heightened geopolitical risks.
However, economic fragmentation has spurred a push by BRICS countries to shift away from the dollar into other currencies through the de-dollarisation approach. – January 31, 2025
