(AFP) – US President Donald Trump threatened China, India, and some of the world’s fastest-emerging economies with higher import tariffs, hitting back at BRICS criticism of his trade policies as the bloc meets Monday. The 11-nation grouping — which also includes US allies Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia — is concluding a two-day summit in Rio de Janeiro. On Sunday, BRICS leaders described Trump’s stop-start tariff wars as “indiscriminate,” damaging, and illegal, drawing a late-night rebuke from the pugilistic US president.
“Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy,” Trump wrote on social media. BRICS members account for about half the world’s population and 40 percent of global economic output. Conceived two decades ago as a forum for fast-growing economies, BRICS has come to be seen as a Chinese-driven effort to curb US global influence.
But it is a quickly expanding and often divergent grouping — bringing together arch US foes like Iran and Russia, with some of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Some US allies inside the bloc had tried to blunt criticism of Trump by not mentioning him or the United States by name in their summit statement.
Saudi Arabia — one of the world’s biggest purchasers of US high-tech weapons — even kept its foreign minister away from Sunday’s talks and a BRICS group photo of leaders, seemingly to avoid Washington’s ire. But such diplomatic gestures were lost on the US president.
In April, Trump threatened a slew of punitive duties, before backing off in the face of a fierce market sell-off. Now he is threatening to impose unilateral levies on trading partners unless they reach “deals” by August 1, with BRICS nations seemingly faced with higher tariffs than planned. It cannot have helped that BRICS leaders also condemned the recent US and Israeli bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities — a show of solidarity with fellow member Iran.
Beijing on Monday insisted BRICS was not seeking confrontation with the United States. “China has repeatedly stated its position that trade and tariff wars have no winners and protectionism offers no way forward,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said. Beijing also defended the bloc as “an important platform for cooperation between emerging markets and developing countries.”
“It advocates openness, inclusivity, and win-win cooperation,” Mao said. “It does not engage in camp confrontation and is not targeted at any country,” she said. The Kremlin echoed that message with spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling Russian media that BRICS cooperation: “has never been and will never be directed against third countries.”
The political punch of this year’s summit has been depleted by the absence of China’s Xi Jinping, who skipped the meeting for the first time in his 12 years as president. The Chinese leader is not the only notable absentee. Russian President Vladimir Putin, charged with war crimes in Ukraine, also opted to stay away, participating via video link. He told counterparts that BRICS had become a key player in global governance. – Andrew BEATTY
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