Trump's threat on
Sunday night came as the US government prepared to finalize dozens of
trade deals with a range of countries before his July 09 deadline for the
imposition of significant "retaliatory tariffs."
The Trump administration does not intend to immediately
impose an additional 10% tariff against BRICS nations, as threatened, but will
proceed if individual countries take policies his administration deems
"anti-American," according to a source familiar with the matter.
At the end of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Lula was
defiant when asked by journalists about Trump's tariff threat, "The world
has changed. We don't want an emperor."
"This is a set of countries that wants to find another
way of organizing the world from the economic perspective," he said of the
bloc. "I think that's why the BRICS are making people uncomfortable."
In
February, Trump warned the BRICS would face "100% tariffs" if they
tried to undermine the role of the US dollar in global trade. Brazil's BRICS
presidency had already backed off efforts to advance a common
currency for the group that some members proposed last year.
But Lula repeated on Monday his view that global trade needs
alternatives to the US dollar.
"The
world needs to find a way that our trade relations don't have to pass through
the dollar," Lula told journalists at the end of the BRICS summit in Rio
de Janeiro.
"Obviously, we have to be responsible about doing that
carefully. Our central banks have to discuss it with central banks from other
countries," he added. "That's something that happens gradually until
it's consolidated."
Other BRICS members also pushed back against Trump's threats
more subtly.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters that
the group does not seek to compete with any other power and expressed
confidence in reaching a trade deal with the US.
"Tariffs
should not be used as a tool for coercion and pressuring," Mao Ning, the
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in Beijing. The BRICS advocates for
"win-win cooperation," she added, and "does not target any
country."
A Kremlin spokesperson said Russia's cooperation with the
BRICS was based on a "common world view" and "will never be
directed against third countries."
Many BRICS members and many of the group's partner nations
are highly dependent on trade with the United States.
New member Indonesia's senior economic minister, Airlangga
Hartarto, who is in Brazil for the BRICS summit, is to the US on Monday to
oversee tariff talks, an official told Reuters.
Malaysia, which was attending as a partner country and was
slapped with 24% tariffs that were later suspended, said that it maintains
independent economic policies and is not focused on ideological alignment.
