President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100% tariff on several countries that have emerging markets if they try to move away from trading using the U.S. dollar.
“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump said in a post on social media. “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.”
“They can go find another ‘sucker!’” he added. “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.”
BRICS primarily consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, but it expanded last year to include Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt, and Ethiopia.
The countries have wanted to move away from using the U.S. dollar for trade to reduce U.S. influence around the world, but infighting between them has prevented that from happening.
There are also “major differences in the way the countries run their economies and financial institutions” that complicate any plans for them to create their own currency, NBC News reported.
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The statement from Trump comes after he threatened Canada, Mexico, and China with tariffs if they did not work to stem the flow of illegal aliens and drugs coming into the U.S.
Bloomberg News reported that Trump and his economic advisers have sought ways to punish any country that tries to move away from the U.S. dollar, including “export controls, currency manipulation charges and levies on trade.”
Trump told CNBC in March that he will “not allow countries to go off the dollar because when we lose that standard, that will be like losing a revolutionary war, that will be a hit to our country just like losing a war and we can’t let that happen and too many countries now are fighting to get off the dollar.”