President of the United States promises not to apply exceptions
United States President Donald Trump threatened to impose an additional 10% rate on any country that alienates with Brics Block policies, which he described against Washington DC.
“Any country that align with anti-policies[norte-]BRICS Americanas will have to pay an additional 10%rate, ”Trump wrote on Sunday night in a publication on his social network, Truth Social.
“There will be no exceptions to this policy,” added the US head of state, raising new uncertainties to the outcome of negotiations between the US and its business partners.
The leaders of the countries that make up the Brics Bloc, gathered in Rio de Janeiro, rejected on Sunday the measures of commercial protectionism, but did not expressly refer to the United States, even though Donald Trump policies are present between the lines of the first day of the meeting.
The forum, consisting of 11 global southern countries and led by China and Russia, began on Sunday and concludes this Monday the 17th meeting of heads of state and government.
This summit in Brazil, which assumes the group’s rotating presidency, is being marked by the absences of Chinese presidents – the first in the history of BRICS – and Russian, although Vladimir Putin participated by teleconference.
The 126 articles that make up the final statement of the first day address Donald Trump’s trade war, the escalation of violence in the Middle East, and appeal to an urgent renovation of the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
“The proliferation of restrictive trade measures, either in the form of indiscriminate increases in rates and non -tariff measures, or in the form of protectionism under the pretext of environmental goals, threatens to further reduce global trade,” said BRICS leaders.
The statement also reaffirmed the commitment to promote trade in local currencies among the 11 countries in the bloc, which represent 40% of the world economy and 26% of global exports.
The forum, which already had a working group to discuss this issue, has also started discussions to establish an initiative for multilateral guarantees – financial instruments that protect foreign direct investments against non -commercial risks in developing countries.
BRICS Countries Finance Ministers were also invited to deepen discussions about the creation of a “transfronistic payment initiative”, competitor of SWIFT, the main international payment system for 11,500 institutions in more than 200 countries and territories on the planet, and controlled by the world’s largest central banks, including the United States Federal Reserve and the European Bank.
Commercial transactions in currency alternative to dollar was another prominent matters. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed, in one of the summit’s plenary sessions, that 90% of transfers between Russia and the other BRICS countries are made in national currencies of the bloc members.
