“Dollar Is King”: Donald Trump Threatens 10% Tariff on BRICS, Including India

“Dollar Is King”: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday again threatened to hit BRICS nations with a 10% tariff. Asked about it during a Cabinet meeting, Trump said the bloc was set up to “degenerate” and “destroy” the dollar “so another country can take over and be the standard”.

Donald Trump said, “They (India) have to pay 10 per cent if they are in BRICS, because BRICS was set up to hurt us, to degenerate our dollar, to take it off as a standard. That is okay if they want to play their game, I can play their game too. So anybody that is in BRICS is getting a 10 per cent charge. If they (India), they’re gonna have to pay a 10 per cent tariff."

“…if we lost the world standard dollar, that would be like losing a war, a major world war. We would not be the same country any longer. We are not going to let that happen… The dollar is king. We are going to keep it that way. If people want to challenge it, they can. But they are going to have to pay a big price. And I don’t think any of them are willing to pay that price,” he added on Tuesday.

Trump said countries trying to challenge the dollar “are gonna have to pay a big price,” and added, “I don’t think any of them is willing to pay that price.”

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He also said he thinks BRICS “mostly broke up”, adding, “I thought BRICS was, and I said it a year ago, that it largely broke up, but a couple of them are still hanging around.”

Brics “not a serious threat,” trying to destroy dollar: Trump

Trump doesn’t see BRICS as a threat, but he accused the group of trying to weaken the US dollar so another country’s currency can become the global standard. “We’re not gonna lose the standard,” he said.

Reiterating his aggressive trade policy, Trump declared, "The dollar is king. We’re gonna keep it that way."

He also pointed to the August 1 deadline for newly announced tariffs on countries that, according to Trump, have been imposing “ridiculous” duties on American products for years. “I called those other countries, and now everyone is willing to give us everything,” he said. “For years, they ripped us off, and we didn’t have a President that understood it.”

On Monday, Trump imposed a 25% tax on goods from Japan and South Korea and new tariffs on 12 other countries that will go into effect on Aug. 1.

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The President’s latest threat comes as the BRICS, which started with Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa but has grown to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia, concluded its 17th summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. BRICS now accounts for 45% of the global population and 35% of the world’s GDP

In June 2022, Russia proposed a new international reserve currency based on a basket of BRICS currencies. But according to a BRICS report, member countries “do not seek to replace the US dollar as a medium of exchange”. Instead, BRICS aims to “offer a viable alternative that will aid the market in its perpetual mission for efficiency” and foster greater prosperity, promoting universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalisation.

The BRICS group, which accounts for 40% of global GDP and nearly half the world’s population, has been vocal against Trump’s tariffs, saying they breach WTO rules. The group has added Iran and Indonesia to its membership, making things more complicated geopolitically.

Brazil’s President Lula, who hosted the latest BRICS summit, said, “We will not accept complaints about the BRICS summit” and rejected Trump’s proposals. Meanwhile, countries like Japan and South Korea are negotiating with the US to mitigate the impact of tariffs, showing the global economic uncertainty caused by the trade war.

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