US president Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 10 per cent tariff on any nation aligning themselves with the “Anti-American policies” of the Brics group of developing countries as their leaders met in Brazil on Sunday.
“Any country aligning themselves with the anti-American policies of Brics, will be charged an additional 10 per cent tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” the US president wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The Brics group – of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is seen as a coalition of developing nations, distinct from Nato, inviting multilateral diplomacy at a time forums led by world’s major economies, like G7 and G20, are caught in the fraught tensions stirred by Mr Trump’s “America First” approach.
After being founded in 2009, and since it invited South Africa to join the following year, the bloc has admitted Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the UAE as full members. It invited Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan as “partner countries”.
Mr Trump’s abrupt and sudden geopolitical beef with the developing nations group comes just hours after it met for its annual gathering in Rio De Janeiro and issued a statement warning against the rise in tariffs and how they threatened global trade.
The US president did not explain what he meant by “anti-American policies”.
The Trump administration is looking to finalise dozens of trade deals with a range of countries across the world before the president’s 9 July deadline, when he imposes significant “retaliatory tariffs” in a move expected to torpedo stock markets in the East and the West.
Nations under the Brics coalition represent more than half the world’s population and 40 per cent of its economic output, Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva noted in remarks on Saturday to business leaders at the summit, warning of rising protectionism.
In his opening remarks at the summit, Mr Lula also drew a parallel with the Cold War’s Non-Aligned Movement, a group of developing nations that resisted joining either side of a polarised global order.
“Brics is the heir to the Non-Aligned Movement,” Mr Lula told leaders. “With multilateralism under attack, our autonomy is in check once again,” he said.
China and South Africa were quick to issue a response on Mr Trump’s social media post while most members of the group, including India and Brazil, remained quiet.
Reacting to Mr Trump’s extra 10 per cent tariffs on Brics, the Chinese foreign ministry said that Beijing “opposes tariffs being used as a tool to coerce others” and that the “use of tariffs serves no one”.
South Africa, in its response to the US leader, said it is not anti-American and still wants to negotiate a trade deal with the US.
“We still await formal communication from the US in respect [to] our trade deal but our conversations remain constructive and fruitful,” South Africa’s trade ministry spokesperson Kaamil Alli told Reuters. “As we have communicated previously, we are not anti-American,” Mr Alli said.
