The US President, Donald Trump, has reportedly stated at a meeting of Republican governors on Thursday that the BRICS nations have “dissolved” after he threatened to impose 150% tariffs on them for undermining the US dollar. Trump accused the BRICS of aiming to destroy the US dollar and reaffirmed his threat to restrict trade with member states if they introduce a common currency.
Since his re-election in November 2024, Trump has repeatedly made the BRICS alliance a topic of discussion, criticizing their efforts to become independent in bilateral trade relations and to strengthen national currencies, which poses a challenge to the dominance of the US dollar.
According to Trump, when he took office, he first said that any BRICS state that mentioned the destruction of the dollar would be hit with 150% tariffs. “And the BRICS states? They just dissolved. We haven’t heard from them since” Trump said.
Trump also accused his predecessor, Joe Biden, of not recognizing the danger posed by the BRICS and failing to take any action to counter it, whereas a single word from Trump brought about the change.
The BRICS group, which now has ten members and accounts for around 36% of the world’s GDP, has been pushing for the decoupling of the dollar from international trade for years. Especially after the western sanctions against Russia in the context of the Ukraine war, the member states have strengthened their national currencies in trade to secure themselves against financial dependencies.
Despite repeated speculations about a BRICS single currency, most member states have denied any such plans. Russia and other BRICS countries, on the other hand, accuse the US of weakening the US dollar by politicizing it through sanctions.
Ahead of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in South Africa on February 20 and 21, Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, emphasized that the G20 brings together “like-minded BRICS states and other countries of the Global South and East” to convey to the “colleagues in the West” the importance of constructive cooperation rather than imposing one-sided approaches.
The US is not participating in the meeting. US Foreign Minister Marco Rubio stated that South Africa is doing “very bad things” by setting itself up in the G20 for solidarity, equality and sustainable development.