President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that the BRICS alliance was created with the intention to ‘hurt’ United States and ‘degenerate’ the US dollar. He further warned that that countries within the bloc could be hit with a 10% tariff.
“And that’s okay if they want to play that game, but I can play that game too. So anybody that’s in BRICS (including India) is getting a 10% charge,” he said, while speaking to reporters at the sixth Cabinet meeting at the White House, and added that this will be happening “pretty soon”.
“Well, if they’re a member of BRICS, they’re gonna have to pay a 10% tariff. Just for that one thing,” Trump said.
If people want to challenge us, they got to pay a price: Trump
Noting that BRICS have ‘largely broke up’, with ‘only a couple of them hanging around’, Trump asserted, “BRICS is not, in my opinion, a serious threat. But what they’re trying to do is destroy the dollar so that another country can take over and be the standard, and we’re not going to lose the standard at any time,” he said, adding, “If you have a smart president, you will never lose the standard.”
“If we lost the world standard dollar, that would be like losing a war, a major world war; we would not be the same country any longer. We’re not going to let that happen…dollar is king, we’re going to keep it that way.
“If people want to challenge it, they can, but they’re going to have to pay a big price, and I don’t think any of them are willing to pay that price,” Trump said.
Leaders of the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Iran — met in Brazil for the 17th BRICS Summit on July 6-7. On Sunday, Trump warned that nations supporting the “anti-American” stance of the BRICS alliance could face an extra 10% tariff.