US President-elect Donald Trump demanded on Saturday that BRICS member countries commit to not creating a new currency or supporting another currency that would replace the United States dollar or face 100% tariffs.
“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, as well as on X/Twitter on Sunday.
“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% Tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US Economy,” Trump said.
Trump’s campaign promises
“They can go find another ‘sucker.’ 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.”
In his campaign, Trump promised he would make it costly for countries to move away from the US dollar and threatened to use tariffs to ensure they complied, Bloomberg reported on Saturday.
The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER. 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…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2024
Other methods to punish states who seek to engage in bilateral trade in currencies other than the dollar include export controls, currency manipulation charges, and levies on trade, Bloomberg noted, citing people familiar with the development.
In an interview with CNBC in March, Trump said he wouldn’t allow states to go off the dollars, as it would be “a hit to our country.”
BRICS countries previously debated the issue of de-dollarization at a summit in 2023, Bloomberg reported. The backlash to the dollar’s dominance gained popularity in 2022 after the US-led efforts to impose economic sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
