The president of the United States, Donald Trump, threatened this Sunday night with imposing “an additional tariff of 10% to any country that is aligned with the antiestado unieteado policies of the BRICS”, in a Truth. This happened a few hours after the Global South Geopolitical Block closed the first day of the summit that celebrates in Rio de Janeiro. In its final statement, this forum consisting of 11 member countries that represent 40% of the world GDP, not to mention it directly for fear of their reprisals.
President Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, host of the summit, has replicated him at a press conference once the meeting is closed: “The world changed. We do not want an emperor, we are sovereign countries.” Lula has pointed out that those affected could respond with their own tariffs and has criticized Trump’s modes. “It does not seem responsible for a president to threaten the world through the Internet.”
The by the group founded in 2009 Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and which were incorporated Saudi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Iran in 2023 states that “the proliferation of restrictive trade measures, either through the indiscriminate increase of tariffs (…) or through protectionism under the pretext of environmental objectives Even more world trade, disturb global supply chains, (…) exacerbate existing economic disparities and affect world economic development perspectives. ”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has responded to Trump that “the use of tariffs does not benefit anyone,” said a spokesman.
The Kremlin, on the other hand, has stressed that “cooperation within the BRICs has never been or will be directed against third countries”, in the words of its spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, reports Reuters. The Russian spokesman added that the BRICs intend to “share a common vision of the world on how to cooperate based on their own interests.”
Trump has warned in his message that “there will be no exceptions to this policy”, in reference to an extra 10%tariff. He has not pointed to specific countries, but in their expansion process the BRICS created last year the category of associated countries, which are Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan. About thirty countries have expressed interest in joining the club.
To the accusation that the Block of the South Global is AntiestadoNense, Lula has reiterated that “he was not born to confront anyone”, but as “a new way of organizing the world.” For example, stop wars. “From Iraq, nobody asks for permission to make war. The UN has lost credibility. There are no longer interlocutors to negotiate the end of conflicts,” he said and has accused the Security Council, “less China” to attend them.
Lula has attributed Trump’s frontal attack that “the BRICS are bothering,” but, he maintains, they are the only ones that can save multilateralism. And despite the furious response Trump gave months ago before the idea that the Block of the South Global created a currency – to the partners – Lula has defended himself turning his back on the US currency. “I think we need to find a way that our commercial relations do not have to go through the dollar.” Anyway, the BRICS have also agreed at the annual meeting of their bank, the New Development Bank, also held in Rio, to promote the use of local currencies, but without taking the step of undertaking the creation of its own currency.
For the fourth time Brazil hosts a summit of the BRICS. Of all, this is the one that occurs in the most adverse global scenario. The UN turned eighty on June 26 and we witnessed collapse without parallel of multilateralism.
The advent of the UN marked the defeat of Nazi-fascism and…
– Lula (@lulaoficial)
The BRICS support the entry of two of their partners, Ethiopia and Iran, to the World Trade Organization (WTO), whose Trump standards have dynamited, meanwhile, paradoxically, China, who entered 2001, and the BRICS have become their great defenders.
The summit of the BRICS in Rio has not attended President Xi Jinping, which has subtracted the meeting. Meanwhile, his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, intervened through video from Russia in view of the international arrest warrant that weighs on him for war crimes in Ukraine.
The main demand shared by BRICs is the requirement to undertake a deep reform of multilateral institutions so that the countries of the so -called Global South, which since 1945 have multiplied their importance since then, increase their fee of power in international organizations to reflect their current economic and demographic weight. And thus exercise a counterweight to the historical domain of the West. Lula has used the IMF as an example: “It is not that we want to change it because we do not like it, but to attend poor countries and do not take them to ruin through austerity policies, as has happened sometimes.”
