President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday demanded a group of developing countries commitment to the use of the U.S. dollar as their reserve currency and threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff if they attempt to abandon it.
“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, referring to the acronym for the original group of countries in the bloc — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The geopolitical alliance has since expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. “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 U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.”
Officials from the BRICS countries have discussed moving away from the U.S. dollar in recent years including at the 2024 BRICS Summit last month. The concept gained steam in 2022 when the U.S. imposed massive economic sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine.
Trump also said in his post that the countries “can go find another ‘sucker!’ There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America.” The statement comes as the president-elect steps up his tariff threats, after he announced plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on Mexico and Canada and a 10 percent additional tariff on China over illegal migration and drug trafficking into the United States.
A spokesperson for the Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request from POLITICO to clarify the total percentage of tariffs planned for China or other BRICS countries.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/30/trump-brics-tariff-trade-00192042
Comment: Damn. I know Trump says a lot of things, but this gives a new meaning to “America First.” This morning our EO voiced his apprehension about Trump and his future relationship with the neocon agenda. I think this Trump statement may give EO his answer. Trump is not interested in repeating the old Charles Lindbergh version of “America First.” He’s not aiming for isolation. He’s aiming to assert America’s power in the world. At least it’s economic power rather than military power. I doubt the cut throat real estate mogul from New York City is going to cut Putin or anybody else any slack in making America great again. We’re in for some interesting times.
TTG
Wet dreams.
Train is gone.
But funny as 3/4 of world think that USA is THE sucker.
Same 3/4 that don’t have toilets or clean water, but do have wormy guts, practice slavery and cast systems and live under tin horn dictators. Who cares what backwards morons think?
Exactly the kind of answer that explain perfectly why you’re so hated.
Aleksander,
Why would I care what some commies on the internet think about me? I don’t care what commies I know in real life think about me either.
Too bad for you if the truth hurts.
The City of London and the folks in Brussels will hate living in that world. So will the Borg. Trump and Diamond have been coordinating on policy in 2024, so says Bloomberg and the NY Post. Deutsche Bank is saying S&P is 7000 by the end of 2025. That’s a lot of EU money looking for a safe haven here.
Could crypto become a reserve currency? Does such a possibility exist?
Laura Wilson,
I don’t think that could happen but this discussion by Yanis Varoufakis on why “digital central bank currencies” could help BRICs unseat the dollar is the smartest thing I have seen on the subject of maintaining/assailing US dollar hegemony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAQ9srTzyYQ&t=400s
And it is unsettling for those who want to see the US continue to lead the world.
Laura Wilson,
No
Two mutually opposing policies. Eliminated the trade deficit and keeping the US dollar’s role in global trade. You can’t have both, so pick one, President Trump.
If Trump wants to bring back industry to the US that means the Dollar will slowly but surely stop been the global trade currency. Basically when most of the foreign dollar holdings have been sent back to the US via the purchase of US goods and services there will no longer be a use for the Dollar in global trade it will just be used between the US and individual countries, and not for example in the trade between Egypt and India.
All Trump has to do to succeed in this policy is to stop his wish for reducing the trade deficit with the rest of the world. The US dollar’s role in global trade is BECAUSE of the chronic trade deficits which sends US dollars out into the global trade system.
Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, and and Kevin MacDonald, were, and are, absolutely right
Keith Harbaugh,
About what, if I may ask?
Antisemitic, Nazi sympathizers, or Isolationists?
For Lindbergh’s views, on at least one subject,
you can read what he said, and actually hear him speak those words, in his September 11, 1941 speech, here:
http://www.charleslindbergh.com/americanfirst/speech.asp
What is most interesting is that he actually identifies the three forces that were promoting America’s entry into World War II (before December 7, 1941 forced America’s hand).
Lindbergh, of course, was an American hero.
That is largely another empty threat from Trump. He still has to figure out how to do some of the other easier suggestions that he has made and have no idea of how. He is basically starting a lot of fires and has no idea of how to control them or put them out when things will start to turn to ashes. The only favorable aspect is that he talks a lot and frequently fails to follow through.
Lars,
Make up your mind. Is he starting scary fires everywhere or making empty threats.
It’s going to be a long rough ride for you status quo + deep state = “democracy” types. Trump is going to shale a lot of boxes and see what opportunities might appear because we believe the status quo is trending in a trajectory that cannot be permitted to continue. I suggest you take up meditation and, if that doesn’t work, see your doctor about pharmaceutical intervention.
Btw – congrats! You people are now the “conservatives”. You are deeply – even fanatically – religious, only you’ve replaced God with the state.
I suspect Trump will do both and badly. I also think that those who think he is the Messiah are deluded. Actually, he is the reason why many are leaving churches. The federal government is a complex system and is doing a lot of stuff nobody would buy on their own, but is needed. There have been many efforts in the past to deal with “waste, fraud and abuse”. To think you can use the same to deal with it is just a fantasy. It would not surprise me that by the time Trump is done, it will cost even more to clean up after him.
Lars,
” Actually, he is the reason why many are leaving churches.”
That’s a heck of cope. Leaving churches because Trump was a NY real estate tycoon in the 90s? Or a TV celebrity with a hit show for almost a decade and a half prior to running for office in 2016? Fun stuff Lars. So much for that multi-generational trend that began long before he became a household name.
It started when in 2017 and a lot of people got upset that some in their churches would support somebody they did not think shared their values. Thus, an exodus ensued and is expected to go even further now. It is a lot easier to claim to be a Christian than actually be one.
Lars,
2017? SMH. For someone who came here in the ’60s you sure missed a lot of the social movements happening in this republic.
Lars,
Thanks for confirming my diagnosis of what ails you. I never said Trump is the “messiah” and never would. That would be blasphemy because the messiah is a spiritual concept, whereas Trump/Maga are political concepts. Like I said, for your ilk, the party is religion. It is not for me. You are strictly relegated to worldly matters by your myopia, cynicism and egotism.
I would suggest, Eric, that the next time you try to diagnose anything, start by looking in a mirror and hopefully you will learn something. There are plenty of people in the MAGA who assigns spiritual qualities to Trump and he even pretends to be a Christian, including being a prophet.
Oh, regarding another matter..
Hegseth nomination in deep do-do!
Now info coming out hecwas forced out of running 2 successive veterans charities due to mismanagement of $$, involving his CHRONIC alcohol abuse, holding sex parties, with at least 2 female staffers signing NDAs after experiencing sexual assualts, as he was head of these orgs.
Al,
Did he have ‘sex parties’ with the guy who ran the high school sex ring Christine Beasley Ford told us all about not long ago? Let’s see:
Google, which didn’t rig search results in the last election, leads too: CNN, which says:
“The seven-page whistleblower report was compiled by former employees of Concerned Veterans for America, the advocacy group where Hegseth was president from 2013 to 2016, and sent to its senior management in February 2015, The New Yorker reported.”
Sooooooo
2015: Nothing
2016:
2017:
2018:
2019:
2020:
2021:
2022:
2023:
2024 is almost over and: Planetary Alert! Sound the NOT FAKE NEWS alarm, this is realzzzz.
So glad nothing happened for, how many years in a decade Al?
And then there’s that other group:
“In October 2008, Vets for Freedom paid for a multimillion-dollar ad campaign criticizing the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama. The group accuses the Democratic presidential nominee of caring more about his campaign than about troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.[10] Previously, Vets for Freedom aired other advertisements criticizing Senator Obama’s position on the Iraq War.” per wiki
My my an astroturf group blew millions on ads opposing Barack? No wonder they are bitching about it now, two decades later.
Keep up the good work Al. Spread the word, Hegseth is linked to hookers n booze and anti-Obama rich guys. That’s sure to derail confirmation.
he’s quite the manly man, as exampled by his faith.
https://www.salon.com/2024/12/03/pete-hegseths-mother-begged-him-to-get-some-help—he-joined-a-misogynist-church-instead/
ked,
Did you paragraph 2? Shocking when hit pieces like this usually wait until the end to counter the headline.
Fred, your guy has now not only violated the NDA he signed in the Calif Repub Women’s sexual assualt case, but has added insulting non-supported allegation that the woman involved has history of alleging sexual assualts. Both the Pros Attor and LE involved state no history of such
Big lawsuit now headed to hit him? Certainly grounds!
He just gets dumb and dumber!
why yes, I did.
he paid her for silence & the legal system left it at that. are you not aware of how justice works these days?
anyway, the compromise fix is in. pre-trump DoJ will now run a background check. it will can his ass – giving sane gop Senators coverage from their overlord. he will swing slowly in the wind & drop out (like that other FL paragon of manly virtue… what was his name?). smartest pick so far is the cop (also from FL) who turned down the DEA seat.
Ked,
So criminal rate charges are not filed due to NDA settlements? That’s a good one. The DOJ now does background checks? That’s even better. I’m sure with 47 days to go before inauguration they’ll have everything wrapped up, with statements by the RAPE survivor under oath of course. All ready for release by the new DOJ. The Hillsborough county Sheriff who arrestedeople for violations of the city and county covid regulations? He already quit. Apparently getting all that conduct into the national news didn’t go over well.
Al, you said something about lawsuits? Gonna be fun times for court tv. Did you hear about the rapist on the USSC? Apparently they are only OK to be on the DC circuit court of appeals. Still waiting for AOC to file impeachment charges. Her silence is violence! Just like NIKE said. What’s taking her and Pelosi so long. #believe all women.
Fred…he’s badly burnt toast. Quiet trying to butter it!
not to worry, he’s toast. taken down by his best efforts … & Senate repubs. maybe if he’d been more compatible w/ trump’s preferred profile – billionaire donor / criminal – he coulda made it. or maybe an ambassador slot – perfect for a party boy. I guess it’s back to heavy drinking at fox.
Al –
That brings back memories of my Dad. He always use to say stop butterin my toast whenever my Mom or anyone else said anything nice about him. Are you from Virginia? That was his birth state.
Al,
He’s not a rapist? Oh my.
Ked,
Rinos for the win. At least they got smoked out into the open before OMB took office.
BRICS is a joke and will be for decades. None of these countries have mastered modern plumbing but somehow they are going to come up with a grand state of the art financial system that everyone is going to love. No way that happens.
I’ve been following the BRICS nonsense for a long time. It never goes anywhere. Even people on RT news joke about it as a work in progress and that is state sponsored Russian propaganda.
Go get some working toilets first and modern garbage trucks then we can have a serious conversation.
finance rationalists seeing trump in their own light.
hilarious.
I’d be much more impressed if the stick came with a commitment not to weaponize the dollar by way of economic sanctions.
Tariffs, sure. Fair game in my book.
But sanctions are another thing altogether, because they produce a schizophrenic foreign policy:
(1) you must trade in $US !!! and
(2) we will prevent you from trading in $US !!!
seem rather…. at odds with each other.
We’ve just had four years of incoherence from the Oval Office, please make it stop.
If Trump insists on imposing economic sanctions as well as tariffs – and he will – then the world will de-dollorize, because the risks outweigh his tariff threats.
Simple as that.
Yeah, right,
Did you miss all the sanctions already in place? Ant day now Cuba will be free, along with the newly criminal free Venezuela.
Yeah, Fred, I had noticed that the USA has a tendency to impose economic sanctions as a weapon of foreign coercion, which is why I wrote what I wrote.
But weaponizing the dollar is one thing when the object for Washington ire is a minnow: trade with Cuba or trade with the USA, which one do I choose? Which one do I choose?
But the USA is now throwing around economic sanctions like a drunk sailor on shore leave throws around money.
The USA now has economic sanctions on China, and on India, and on Russia, etc. etc. etc.
Now, so very sorry, but when the 2nd biggest economy in the world uses its dollar as a WEAPON against the world’s largest economy, the world’s 3rd largest economy, and the world’s 4th largest economy then the days of that dollar as the world reserve currency is numbered.
It’s doomed, and not because of the actions of those countries, but because of the REaction of those countries to Washington’s use of the dollar’s privileged position as a weapon.
Tariffs aren’t going to reverse that (or, rather, tariffs WOULD reverse that if a tariff regime replaced the current sanctions regime, but that’s not what will happen).
The dollar as reserve currency is meant to be an “exorbitant privilege”, it is not meant to be an “extortionist privilege”.
Washington is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Not Beijing.
Not New Delhi.
Not Moscow.
Washington is do it all on its lonesome, and I can’t see Trump changing that any time soon – tariffs or no tariffs.
Yeah, Right,
All those poor helpless countries so full of native virtue. If only they had agency.
Fred, they have agency. That’s exactly why Trump is threatening them with tariffs.
He”s not threatening them for s**ts and giggles, he’s doing it because he understands that they are dumping the dollar, just as he understands that when they do the US economy implodes.
That’s “agency”.
I mean, honesty, China is not Canada and Putin is not Trudeau. They have choices, whereas your northern neighbour has no option but to drop the trousers and bend over.
Again, “agency”.
And it is all so unnecessary: none of those countries are dumping the dollar out of spite or malice.
They are doing so because Washington keeps using the dollar as a form of coercion.
If Trump stopped doing that then he wouldn’t even need to impose tariffs: China, Russia and India etc would go back to using the dollar.
But Trump won’t stop using the dollar as a weapon, so no amount of tariffs will stop dedollarization.
You are funny, Fred. You appear to honestly think that the USA has a monopoly on “agency”.
How very neocon of you.
the exorbitant privillege is a poison pill created by trade deficits.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/trump-tariffs-and-exchange-rates-the-message-of-elections-in-the-us-and-japan
“As a trade deficit directly reduces GDP, the vast majority of countries worry about running larger trade deficits unless the imported goods responsible for those deficits are capital goods essential to future economic development. “
Richard Koo with a nice article on the key problems facing President Trump if he really wants to do something.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/trump-tariffs-and-exchange-rates-the-message-of-elections-in-the-us-and-japan