Trump warns BRICS countries against replacing the dollar

The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, demanded this Saturday (30) that the Brics member countries commit to not creating a new currency or supporting another currency that replaces the dollar, under penalty of suffering 100% tariffs.

“We demand that these countries commit not to create a new BRICS currency nor support any other currency that replaces the mighty US dollar, otherwise they will suffer 100% tariffs and must say goodbye to sales to the wonderful North American economy” , Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“They can look for another ‘sucker’. There is no chance of the Brics replacing the Americans in international trade, and any country that tries must say goodbye to the United States”, he added.

Since January this year, the Brics group has ten full members. In addition to Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates joined the bloc as permanent members.

When contacted, the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil and the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs were unable to comment on the matter immediately.

In October, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, defended, at a summit meeting of the Brics countries in Kazan, Russia, that the bloc of emerging countries move forward in creating alternative means of payment among themselves, avoiding the need to use of the dollar.

The development of a payment clearing mechanism in local currencies is one of Brazil’s priorities in the BRICS, which wants to see the bloc less dependent on the use of the dollar in its internal transactions. Brazil assumes the presidency of the bloc from this year onwards and during 2025, and intends to accelerate this proposal and also expand the operations of the New Development Bank, the Brics bank, currently chaired by former president Dilma Rousseff.