RIO DE JANEIRO: Developing nations at the BRICS summit on Monday brushed away an accusation from President Donald Trump that they are “anti-American,” with Brazil’s president saying the world does not need an emperor after the US leader threatened extra tariffs on the bloc.
Trump’s threat on Sunday night came as the US government prepared to finalize dozens of trade deals with a range of countries before his July 9 deadline for the imposition of significant “retaliatory tariffs.”
The Trump administration does not intend to immediately impose an additional 10 percent tariff against BRICS nations, as threatened, but will proceed if individual countries take policies his administration deems “anti-American,” according to a source familiar with the matter.
At the end of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Lula was defiant when asked by journalists about Trump’s tariff threat: “The world has changed. We don’t want an emperor.”
“This is a set of countries that wants to find another way of organizing the world from the economic perspective,” he said of the bloc. “I think that’s why the BRICS are making people uncomfortable.”
In February, Trump warned the BRICS would face “100 percent tariffs” if they tried to undermine the role of the US dollar in global trade. Brazil’s BRICS presidency had already backed off efforts to advance a common currency for the group that some members proposed last year.
But Lula repeated on Monday his view that global trade needs alternatives to the US dollar.
“The world needs to find a way that our trade relations don’t have to pass through the dollar,” Lula told journalists at the end of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro.
“Obviously, we have to be responsible about doing that carefully. Our central banks have to discuss it with central banks from other countries,” he added. “That’s something that happens gradually until it’s consolidated.”
Other BRICS members also pushed back against Trump’s threats more subtly.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters that the group does not seek to compete with any other power and expressed confidence in reaching a trade deal with the US
“Tariffs should not be used as a tool for coercion and pressuring,” Mao Ning, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in Beijing. The BRICS advocates for “win-win cooperation,” she added, and “does not target any country.”
A Kremlin spokesperson said Russia’s cooperation with the BRICS was based on a “common world view” and “will never be directed against third countries.”
India did not immediately provide an official response to Trump.
Many BRICS members and many of the group’s partner nations are highly dependent on trade with the United States. New member Indonesia’s senior economic minister, Airlangga Hartarto, who is in Brazil for the BRICS summit, is scheduled to go to the US on Monday to oversee tariff talks, an official told Reuters. Malaysia, which was attending as a partner country and was slapped with 24 percent tariffs that were later suspended, said that it maintains independent economic policies and is not focused on ideological alignment.
Multilateral diplomacy
With forums such as the G7 and G20 groups of major economies hamstrung by divisions and Trump’s disruptive “America First” approach, the BRICS group has presented itself as a haven for multilateral diplomacy amid violent conflicts and trade wars.
In a joint statement released on Sunday afternoon, leaders at the summit condemned the recent bombing of member nation Iran and warned that the rise in tariffs threatened global trade, continuing its veiled criticism of Trump’s tariff policies.
Hours later, Trump warned he would punish countries seeking to join the group.
The original BRICS group gathered leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China at its first summit in 2009. The bloc later added South Africa and last year included Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates as members.
Saudi Arabia has held off formally accepting an invitation to full membership, but is participating as a partner country. More than 30 nations have expressed interest in participating in the BRICS, either as full members or partners.
