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Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
By threatening to impose sanctions on BRICS members, United States President Donald Trump appears to be concerned by the group’s challenge to Washington’s efforts to achieve global hegemony and maintain the dominance of the US dollar. However, his efforts will ultimately fail as BRICS continues to develop and expand.
“If they’re a member of BRICS, they are going to have to pay a 10% tariff, just for that one thing – and they won’t be a member long,” Trump declared on July 8. “BRICS was set up to hurt us, BRICS was set up to degenerate our dollar and take our dollar, take it off as the standard.”
He added that the US dollar losing its status as the world’s reserve currency would be as damaging as “losing a war, a major world war.”
Trump provided no specific date for the BRICS tariff to take effect. On July 7, a source familiar with the matter, cited by Reuters, stated that the Trump administration would impose the tariff only if countries adopted anti-American policies, differentiating between actions and statements, such as the one adopted by the BRICS leaders the day before.
Since winning the election, the US president has threatened the group on several occasions, even going so far as to say he would impose 100% taxes on it, which would be an unprecedented move. Most recently, during the 17th BRICS Summit held in Brazil (6-7 July), Trump issued a new threat.
Washington believes that BRICS was created to depreciate the US dollar and ultimately eliminate it as a reserve currency. However, the group consistently reiterates that cooperation within the BRICS framework has never been, and will never be, directed against any third country.
Trump’s threats against BRICS are a desperate measure. In this regard, the group founded by Brazil, Russia, China, and India has grown significantly in recent years, which the US sees as a threat to its hegemony. It is a way of trying to intimidate other countries into staying away from this developing and rapidly growing trade group.
The US president’s threat is primarily directed at Latin American countries, such as Mexico, which, although not a member, attended the summit as a guest and has shown interest in diversifying its trade relations away from its northern neighbor in recent years. Nonetheless, Mexico’s efforts appear to be failing in the face of US political and economic actions.
BRICS not only present the possibility of economic growth in the Global South, but also challenge one of the main instruments that US hegemony has used to subjugate countries: the dollar and the international payments system, SWIFT.
At the same time, the group is establishing a global structure that is autonomous from the US-dominated International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. While it has been a slow and gradual process, the loss of US hegemony is a reality, and Washington is seeking somehow to block the way and impose its vision and objectives on all other countries.
All of Latin America is facing increased US pressure, Ukraine instigated war with Russia by serving as a US proxy, and China is experiencing tariff policies as a tool to impose the will of the US through economic warfare. In the case of BRICS, the group poses a challenge to the Western-dominated rules of the global system, as imposed by the US.
The current economic policy imposed by Washington has only accelerated the process of rejection by the world, in addition to causing new nations to turn to the Global South. These misguided actions are not producing the results Trump initially envisioned with the tariffs and the subordination of many countries. This policy has begun to open channels for negotiations, for example, with BRICS.
Furthermore, countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran have suffered US sanctions for years, so the group represents an opportunity for them to strengthen their economies.
The US may attempt to slow the entry of new countries into the BRICS group, including Cuba and Venezuela, by imposing even stricter sanctions. The US remains a major power and is likely to resort to harsher measures to prevent losing control of Latin America.
BRICS is still being developed, but it has significant potential to challenge the hegemony that the US seeks to perpetuate. Although the hegemonic neoliberal globalization of the US has not yet come to an end, the group is in the process of development, a gradual and slow one. Nonetheless, it is generating a new multipolar globalization. BRICS, in that sense, has a long way to go and great potential that can serve to propose a new historical stage in the history of humanity.
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watch out iranians, dump and netanyahu are coming back, because they want to set up a shah.
no not them, they’re just low level players serving
they will and he will incorporate freedom of religion so will bring in canon crown law and remove sharia. imo
it is just all about the jew money lenders and the jews controlling everything and everyone. it has nothing to do with the powerless brokeass royals
not trump or netanyahu the royals who use crown law, which includes the king of kings, the pope will do it using trump and netanyahu as the stooges, the shop front. imo
here’s the reality https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0adiyhetznc
they use people like toys, suckers idiots to run their operations, make up crap, cover the truth deceive the world. smoke screens curtains veils decoys etc
we’re still winning…heheheh
they’ve been worried for 10 years after starting an orange revolution/coup on russia’s “border”, with the roi so deeply lost that they have resorted to destroying property in the form of gas pipelines, invading russia , with nato$tan mercs, as well as and freezing russian foreign bank accounts in the west. having said this… why haven’t these dual un member(s) vacated the clubh0u$e after libya… syria… yemen… and ukraine…???
they get away with what ever the russians let them get away with
for every “action”… there is “an equal and opposite reaction”… russia has been hurting the american war machine through it’s superior defensive military capabilities that also doubles in depleting the banksters resources. after so much devastation in the eastern donbas these last 11 years that includes genocide.
the gloves officially came off when poutine announced that as far as he was concerned the $300 billion that was stolen from russia in their foreign western bank accounts was “just fine”, and that they would find other ways to bring the nato$tan establishment to heel.
…could the russian federation have done it better with the intention of saving more russian lives?… or for that matter syrians? -of course they could have… which raises the biggest question “why” they remain chained to the western banking and energy establishment(s)???
brazil shouldn’t worry — china can supply anything the usa can, at 1/2 the price. it will also shift it’s direction of imports from non-brics to nations of brics — it’s been doing just that for some time.
i believe brazil already knows that, hence it’s immediate counter-tariffs of 50% on amerikan products.
brics can’t seem to get its act together, they have the numbers, they control the means of production, but they still get kicked around by the shabbos emperor.