Trump threatens new tariffs on nations supporting ‘anti-American' policies of BRICS group

Egypt Independent

3 days ago

CNN —
President Donald Trump has threatened new tariffs on any nation supporting 'anti-American' policies of the BRICS group of emerging economies, as he announced tariff letters would be sent out to scores of countries from Monday, ahead of a key deadline.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said the US would impose an additional 10% tariff on 'any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS' with 'no exceptions,' though it was not immediately clear which policies Trump was referring to.
The BRICS group, an acronym of founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has long stood as a disparate body of countries united by a shared view that global power-sharing should be redistributed to reflect current global economic realities for a 'multipolar' as opposed to a West-led world order.
The group has recently expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates as members, and has ten lower-level partner countries – including Belarus, Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam. It's not clear if Saudi Arabia has accepted an invitation to join the economic club.
Brazil is currently hosting a BRICS summit, with leaders releasing a joint declaration on Sunday voicing 'serious concerns' about the 'rise of unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures' – an apparent a veiled jibe at the Trump administration's trade policy.
The US administration's 90-day tariff pause is set to come to an end on Wednesday and Trump confirmed on Sunday night that letters will be sent out to dozens of countries from Monday.
'I am pleased to announce that the UNITED STATES TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals, with various Countries from around the World, will be delivered starting 12:00 P.M. (Eastern), Monday, July 7th,' he said in a separate Truth Social on Sunday night.
'If you don't move things along, then on August 1 you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level,' Bessent said about trading partners Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union with Dana Bash.'
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously said that tariffs could return to April levels, if countries failed to strike a deal with the US.
Trump has suggested the letters would include duty rates at the current 10% baseline, or as extensive as 70%. Bessent said Sunday the United States would not impose 70% tariff rates on major trading partners.
'We're gonna be sending letters out on Monday having to do with the trade deals. Could be 12, maybe 15 … and we've made deals, also,' Trump told CNN's Betsy Klein when asked about tariff rates late Sunday afternoon at Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey.
Following Bessent's comments, Trump added that letters will continue to go out on Tuesday and Wednesday. 'We'll have most countries done by July 9 — either a letter or a deal,' he said earlier on Sunday.
'The president is right in the midst of discussing all sorts of deals with all sorts of countries,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters Sunday alongside Trump. He also confirmed that tariff rates would go into effect on August 1.
Bessent on Sunday declined to confirm to CNN which countries were close to a deal.
He said that about 100 letters will be sent to small countries 'where we don't have very much trade,' many of which are 'already at the baseline 10%.' Trump on Friday touted letters as the 'better' option for countries that fail to negotiate deals before the July 9 deadline.
On April 9, Trump announced a complete three-month pause on all the 'reciprocal' tariffs after insisting historically high tariffs were here to stay. Later that month, he told Time magazine that he had already struck 200 trade deals but declined to say with whom.
So far, Trump has only announced deals with three countries: the United Kingdom, which maintained a 10% tariff rate; China, which temporarily paused sky-high duties on most goods from 145% to 30%; and a minimum 20% tariff on goods from Vietnam.
In response to the three deals being described as 'frameworks,' Bessent said the upcoming letters 'will set their tariff rates. So we will have 100 done in the next few days.'
'Many of these countries never even contacted us,' he said, adding that 'We have the leverage in this situation,' as the country facing a trading deficit.
Bessent pushed back against August 1 as a new deadline. He also described the administration's plan as applying 'maximum pressure.'
'It's not a new deadline. We are saying, 'This is when it's happening. If you want to speed things up, have at it. If you want to back to the old rate, that's your choice,'' Bessent said about America's trading partners, and used the European Union as an example of countries coming to the table after Trump threatened 50% tariffs on EU imports.
BRICS
Trump's threat of new tariffs on any nation supporting the 'anti-American policies' of BRICS countries on Sunday injects fresh instability and uncertainty into the president's global tariff campaign, as the July 9 deadline for 'reciprocal' tariff negotiations approaches.
Some BRICS countries have been negotiating directly with the Trump administration, in particular India. It's unclear if Trump's new threat would impact those talks.
Trump earlier this year threatened to place a '100% tariff' on 'seemingly hostile' member countries if they supported a shared currency. The idea of a BRICS currency was floated by Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2023, but has not been a focus of the body, which rather seeks to bolster trade and financing in their local currencies.
On Sunday, the group of BRICS leaders backed ongoing discussions of a cross-border payments initiative between member countries.
BRICS countries also condemned the military strikes on member state Iran and expressed 'serious concern' over 'deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure' and 'peaceful' nuclear facilities, without naming Israel, which carried out days of strikes against Iran last month, or the US, which bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities as part of the same onslaught.
When asked about Trump's latest comments at a regular media briefing Monday, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry called BRICS an 'important platform for cooperation among emerging markets and developing countries,' which 'avoids bloc confrontation or targeting any specific country.'
'We consistently oppose tariff wars and trade wars, as well as using tariffs as a tool for coercion and pressure. Arbitrarily increasing tariffs does not serve the interests of any party,' spokesperson Mao Ning said, in response to a question about how China would react if additional tariffs were imposed on it over BRICS.
Economic risks
Economists have warned that Trump's trade war, especially the wide-ranging tariffs on Chinese imports, will increase costs for consumers. Some companies, including Walmart, have said they will raise prices for customers despite pushback from Trump.
'We have seen no inflation so far,' Bessent said on 'Fox News Sunday,' calling such projections 'misinformation' and 'tariff derangement syndrome.' Bessent and other Trump officials have repeatedly argued in recent months that countries like China would bear the cost of tariffs.
US wholesale inflation rose slightly in May, driven in part by costlier goods, though tariff-related effects were largely muted. The Producer Price Index, a closely watched measurement of wholesale inflation, showed that prices paid to producers rose 0.1% in May, lifting the annual rate to 2.6%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released in June.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who has blasted Bessent for undermining the economic impact of tariffs, said Sunday on ABC's 'This Week' that tariffs 'will probably collect some revenue' but would come at the expense of higher inflation and less competitiveness for American producers.
Also appearing on 'This Week,' Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said there was no 'lasting evidence' that tariffs imposed on China during Trump's first term hurt the economy and the administration has only 'repeated the same performance' this year.
'Tariff revenue is pouring in. There's no sign of any economically significant inflation whatsoever and job creation remains healthy,' Miran said.
CNN's Kit Maher and Alicia Wallace contributed to this report.