A few hours before he was to meet with Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, which is one of the founding members of the BRICS, President Donald Trump pronounced that “BRICS is dead,” and all because of his threats to slap 100% tariffs on all BRICS members if they dare to challenge the hegemony of the dollar.
The issue came up when an Indian reporter asked him in a press conference if he wanted to dismantle the BRICS or to have the U.S. be a part of it—an interesting idea. Trump interrupted him to declare that “BRICS was put there for a bad purpose and most of those people don’t want it. They don’t even want to talk about it now. They’re afraid to talk about it because I told them if they want to play games with the dollar, then they’re going to be hit with a 100% tariff…. BRICS died the minute I mentioned that…. BRICS is dead.” He went on for a bit longer about how the supposedly-dead BRICS will come back begging, because “they don’t have us over a barrel. We have them over a barrel.”
Braggadocio apart, BRICS is very much alive. It has grown from the initiating members of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the U.A.E., increasing the number of its full members to 10, with the nine nations of Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan now participating as partner members. Every continent except Australia and North America is represented, with those nations altogether including 57% of the world’s population, with corresponding hefty economic potential and developed capabilities, from raw materials to cutting edge science and technologies.
