President Donald Trump took to social media on Thursday night to threaten 10 more countries with tariffs if they replace the U.S. dollar as their reserve currency.
“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar, while we stand by and watch, is OVER,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. “We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile 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.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what inspired the evening rant. Starting Saturday, Trump also plans to hit Mexico and Canada with 25 percent tariffs.
In late November, Trump posted almost the exact same threat verbatim against the BRICS countries, a term that was originally coined to describe the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
They’ve since formed an official international organization that also includes South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia.
An exchange with a reporter at the Oval Office on Jan. 20 revealed Trump didn’t even know which countries were in BRICS.
“Spain is very low. Are they a BRICS nation?” he said to a reporter who was asking about defense spending.
“What?” the reporter asked.
“They’re a BRICS nation, Spain. You know what a BRICS nation is? You’ll figure it out,” he said.
BRICS does not have a common currency but has discussed the idea for years, according to Reuters.
It has also encouraged trading in local currencies in an attempt to weaken “dollar dominance,” the outsized role the U.S. dollar plays in the world economy, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In response to Trump’s earlier threat, a Kremlin spokesperson said attempts to “compel” countries that use the dollar by imposing “economic force” would backfire, Reuters reported.
The dollar remains strong thanks to a robust U.S. economy, tighter monetary policy and heightened geopolitical risks, according to Reuters.
That didn’t stop Trump from conducting foreign policy via social media even as he had his hands full with the worst domestic aviation tragedy in more than two decades.
As he was posting, rescuers continued to recover bodies from the freezing Potomac River following Wednesday’s midair collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk Helicopter, killing 67 people.
But the president is apparently a multitasker.
“They can go find another sucker Nation,” he wrote. “There is no chance that BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, or anywhere else, and any Country that tries should say hello to Tariffs, and goodbye to America!”
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