What Would Donald Trump Do for the Dollar?

From Ekspert, July 22, 2025, https://expert.ru/v-mire/na-chto-gotov-donald-tramp-za-dollar/. Complete text:

Editors’ Note. – [US] President Donald Trump said on July 18 that If BRICS ever evolves into a meaningful threat to the US, “it will end very quickly.” Ekspert asked a few experts whether these words should be taken seriously. President Trump said he would deal with BRICS by slapping tariffs on imports from its member states. But the tariff rate he mentioned – a mere 10% – does not look particularly steep. Still, the US president said, this tariff will “hit them very, very hard.”

* * *

Without naming any of the BRICS countries specifically, Trump warned that his measures would make the group “end very quickly” and that the US “can never let anyone play games with us.”

The tariff may be imposed on any country Washington perceives as hostile. Trump denounced BRICS policies as openly “anti-American.” At the same time, he failed to offer any evidence to back up his claims. BRICS leaders have never said their integration efforts were in any way intended to act against the interests of any other countries, including the US.

The White House views BRICS as a threat because the group members plan to launch their own payment system, BRICS Pay, instead of trading in US dollars. At some point, they may even create their own currency. (So far, the initiative has not gone beyond printing a few mock bills as souvenirs.)

Of all the BRICS countries, Brazil will probably be hit the hardest by the US trade war. On July 10, the US accused Brazil of “unfair competition” and announced that a 50% tariff will be applied to all imports coming from Brazil starting Aug. 1.

This is not the first time Trump has lashed out against BRICS. Back in February, he proclaimed BRICS “dead.” He also threatened to impose 100% tariffs if the BRICS nations “want to play games with the dollar.” Tensions between the US and BRICS are particularly obvious at forums like the Group of 20, where the five core members of BRICS act as a rallying point for the countries of the Global South.

The 17th BRICS summit, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 6-7, 2025 [see Vol. 77, No. 28, pp. 3‑6], was the first one to be held in an expanded format, which, in addition to the core group, included Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Delegations from Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam were also present as observers or candidates for membership.

Andrei Sidorov, former chair of international organizations and global political processes and dean of Moscow State University’s department of global politics. – Donald Trump keeps saying that BRICS is on its last legs, that it’s about to fall apart or become irrelevant, or some such thing. What makes him so sure about that? His claims are not supported by facts. When the group first emerged back in 2006 (it was BRIC, not BRICS, at the time), US presidents never even mentioned it, as though they weren’t aware of its existence. So, why does BRICS make Trump so angry, especially considering that it does not even have any official governing bodies or common political interests – unlike, say, the Group of Seven?

The thing is, BRICS announced at its 16th summit in Kazan in 2024 [see Vol. 76, No. 43, pp. 3‑6] that its members may move away from using the US dollar in their mutual payments. This had Trump seeing red. Considering that the Chinese yuan currently accounts for over 10% of global reserves, this would be a major challenge to the US.

How can Washington “punish” BRICS? We don’t know, but we can get an idea by looking at its recent actions vis-à-vis Brazil. Trump is mad, first, because Brazil has an impressive trade surplus with the US, and second, because President [Luiz Inacio] Lula da Silva acts defiant – unlike, for example, G7 members, who are always willing to fall in line and take orders from Washington, no matter how erratic its policies are.

It would be impossible to impose sanctions on BRICS as an entity (since the US does not even officially recognize it as an international organization), so the US can only “punish” specific BRICS members for their involvement in concerted efforts within the group.

In this respect, we should take a closer look at recent trends within the G20. The recent summit in Durban clearly demonstrated that there are currently two opposing camps within the group: BRICS and the G7. This means that the G20 may soon face the same prospect that Trump predicted for BRICS: The group may become ineffective and fall apart. BRICS, on the other hand, is not in jeopardy – precisely because it is very flexible. What brings its members together are purely economic considerations, even if some members are divided by political differences – which at times may be very acute, China and India being a case in point.

To summarize, any attempt by the US to “punish” BRICS would be like wrestling with a shadow. BRICS’s amorphous nature is its superpower. It is impossible to defeat BRICS in one fell swoop; the US will have to deal with each of the members separately, which will render its protectionist measures less effective. Besides, the more nations join BRICS, the more difficult it will be for Trump to carry out his threat and bring it down.

Natalia Karpova, associate professor at the Higher School of Economics’ department of global economy and global politics. –Any attempt to sideline BRICS would be doomed to fail, if only because the organization is a decentralized network. It doesn’t have a single decision-making center, so it is impossible to decapitate BRICS.

In fact, this is a general trend in international cooperation: Vertically integrated organizations with clear rules and regulations are now being replaced with less structured, decentralized networks, which have the advantage of being flexible and evasive, hard to hit. Their members are only brought together by a common concept, ideology, or market need, without any formal obligations. BRICS is a typical example of this new trend in international cooperation. It is akin to being a freelancer: You can decide on your own what needs to be done and when, you can work remotely on several projects at a time, etc.

The more flexible such a cooperation model is, the more difficult it will be for enemies to undermine it. Most BRICS members don’t have enough resources to resist US hegemonic aspirations on their own. But when they stick together, their voices sound powerful. Even countries like Russia or China are not capable of achieving the same effect when “singing solo.” This is why, for example, the Brazilian president today has the courage to talk to the US president the way he does.

What can Trump possibly hope to achieve when he threatens to destroy BRICS? At best, he can create some trading problems for the key member states like China and Russia, hoping that other, less important nations will drift away on their own once the “beacons” go out. It’s a classic divide-and-conquer approach. To the US, this is their standard way of running things: They use tariffs to divert investment from the leading nations, hoping that second-string players end up looking for other leaders to follow. Naturally, Washington hopes that they turn to the US as their new leader.