New York, Dec 1 (VOICE) US President-Elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose 100 per cent tariffs on BRICS countries if they develop a new currency or adopt another to replace "the mighty dollar" and effectively bar them from American markets.
"There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the US Dollar in International Trade, and any country that tries should wave goodbye to America," he posted on Truth Social on Saturday.
Threatening to close the US market to India and the other eight members of BRICS, he wrote with misplaced capitalisation of words in his style, "We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty US Dollar or, they will face 100 per cent Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US Economy."
Trump's warning to BRICS -- after threatening higher tariffs on imports from China, Mexico, and Canada -- is premature.
External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar has already categorically ruled out the idea of a common BRICS currency. "There is no idea of a BRICS currency. Currencies will remain a national issue for a long time to come," he said last year ahead of the group's summit in Johannesburg.
India is the second-biggest economy in BRICS. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, nevertheless, went on to propose a common currency at the Johannesburg summit, but it has made no headway.
During his campaign, Trump had asserted that the dollar faced threats to its future as the world's premier trading currency and said that President Joe Biden was ignoring it. "The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is over," he said in Truth Social post.
His warning to BRICS countries is more like a loyalty test to see which countries would publicly take the stand India already has and a pre-emptive warning to Beijing.
BRICS, an acronym from names of its first set of members -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa -- expanded this year to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and UAE. Several other countries have applied joining making headway as an economy-focused organisation Global South.
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