Trump’s actions to weaken BRICS can result in the opposite

Punitive White House tariffs to groups of the group outweigh those applied to the rest of the world. In response, they articulate to expand their trade and reduce dependence on the dollar.

US President Donald Trump is accused of being inadvertently, contributing to bringing countries closer to BRICS by imposing particularly higher import tariffs against them. This is what has just happened to India, which on Wednesday (27/08) saw the US import rates against its products rise to 50%-half of the rate is a punishment for the country to buy Russian oil.

Brazil is also subject to a general import rate of 50%, as a way to press the country to annul the trial on a coup attempt against former President Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of Trump. Although several Brazilian products have entered a list of exceptions, the country is subject to one of the world’s largest rates in the White House tariff.

China, BRICS’s largest member, is still in danger of facing a 145% tariff if it cannot reach a deal with the US, and South Africa has received a 30% rate. Even younger members, incorporated into the recent expansion of the group, such as Egypt, can see their tariffs increase due to their participation in BRICS.

Since the beginning of his current term, Trump has warned several times about applying additional punishments against any nation that alienates with what he calls “anti -American policies” – a direct reference to the growing challenge that BRICS represents to the global domain of the US.

Trump gave Brics “Common Incentive”

Ajay Srivastava, former server of the India Foreign Trade Agency (ITDs), believes that BRICS countries feel “little intimidated” because they are the target of additional penalties by Trump. He told DW that the tariffs “give Brics a common incentive to reduce their dependence on the US, even if their agendas divide.”

According to a report in the German newspaper, Trump has made four telephone calls in recent weeks to try to talk to India Prime Minor Narendra Modi, who ignored all calls.

Punitive White House tariffs have created a common complaint among BRICS members, who are now expanding bilateral trade agreements in national currencies to reduce the dependence of the US dollar. BRICS central banks have also increased gold shopping, which also signals the desire to give less dollar weight in their reserves.

In early August, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stated that he would seek a joint response from Brics from Trump’s tariff.

Trump threatened to punish countries that align with what he calls “anti -American policies”, referring to BRICS initiatives to reduce dollar dependence | Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

After Trump declares that “BRICS is dead,” a researcher accused the US president of “strategic negligence,” arguing that the Republican turned a coalition of countries with very different goals into a more unified bloc.

In a recent article for the Washington Post newspaper, Max Boot, senior member of the Think Tank Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump was “reducing US power by wickedly uniting friends of America with our enemies” – a reference to the way Brazil, South Africa and India are closely aligning themselves with China and Russia.

Modi goes to China for the first time in seven years

An additional demonstration of the growing solidarity among BRICS members will be shown at a summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tianjin, northern China, starting this Sunday.

Chinese president Xi Jinping will receive his Indian and Russian counterparts Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin, as well as leaders of about 20 other global southern countries. This will be the first time Modi will step on Chinese soil in seven years.

Prior to the summit, Kremlin has been pressuring for China, Russia and India to hold their first trilateral negotiations in six years, an initiative that would strengthen the BRICS Alliance core. Moscow believes that the reactive of high -level dialogue among the group’s three largest countries could help calm longstanding tensions, especially between India and China, and have a more cohesive counterweight to the West.

Putin wants to promote a trilateral dome between Russia, China and India | Alexander Shcherbak/Tass/DPA/Picture Alliance

New Delhi recalibra approach about Beijing

Trump’s significant fare led New Delhi to strengthen economic ties with China, resuming direct flights, flexing visa restrictions and increasing commercial discussions.

The two countries also had conversations to try to resolve longtime disputes along their border actually 3,500 kilometers.

During a visit to India last week, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed to increase the supply of rare land to the Indians. China controls over 85% of the global rare land processing, and India needs these minerals to develop products for energy transition, electric vehicles and defense technologies.

But although they support themselves to each other to host BRICS domes in 2026 and 2027, there are several reasons for skepticism about a significant improvement in Sino-Indian relations given New Delhi suspicions on China’s ambitions in Asia.

Shilan Shah, a deputy chief economist of emerging markets at London-based Capital Economics consultancy, cited China’s narrow relations with the main enemy of India, Pakistan, and the construction of a Chinese hydroelectric dam in the Tibetan plateau, which caused uneasiness in New Delhi.

In an article, Shah also noted that “the influx of cheap Chinese imports” was “damaging India’s efforts to strengthen his domestic industry.”

In addition to the distrust of India over China, its longtime ties with Washington can harm the ambition to make BRICS advance. India strongly depends on American market and technology, and exported $ 77.5 billion ($ 433 billion) to the US in 2024, against much lower exports to Russia and China.

Other BRICS countries reinforce ties with China

Brazil also tried to boost bilateral trade with China, its largest commercial partner, during a telephone call earlier this month between Xi and Lula. China buys 26% of Brazil’s exports – double what the United States.

Xi’s very symbolic presence alongside Putin at the Russian Victory Day parade in May, stressed the deepening of the strategic alignment between Moscow and Beijing. More than 90% of bilateral trade between Russia and China is now performed in Yuan and Rublos, according to Kremlin.

South Africa also remains firm in its commitments to BRICS, signaling its intention to trace its own path despite Trump’s pressure.

“The South African government is not willing to reverse any of its commitments to BRICS, especially on the reform of global governance, technology, agriculture, academic exchanges and bilateral trade,” Sanusha Naidu, senior researcher at the Institute for Global Dialogue, based in South Africa, to DW.

Divergent ambitions within BRICS

Newly-expanded from five to ten members-with Saudi Arabia still undecided about adhesion-Brics is becoming increasingly fragmented due to divergent national interests, which can limit their ambitions. He is also becoming more authoritarian.

Srivastava, which founded the New Delhi -based global commercial research initiative, said Brics “has less to do with perfect unit and more with pragmatic cooperation in commerce, finance and supply chains.”

Although trade between BRICS countries has grown faster than trade between BRICS and G7 countries, much of it is oil and gas. And intra-bric trade is subject to more barriers than those existing among Western countries, according to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey.

The BCG identified future signs that BRICS commercial cooperation was increasing, including a reversal of anti -dumping measures and other commercial restrictions, movements towards a free trade agreement throughout BRICS, unanimous support for the World Trade Organization (WTO) reform and more foreign investments between the bloc countries.

Intra-bric trade should grow more

Although these ambitions may not immediately materialize, Mihaela Papa, research director of the Center for International Studies of MIT in Cambridge, projects that intra-bric trade will be more relevant.

“We can expect greater political support for new business initiatives, ‘Buy Brics’ campaigns and projects such as the BRICS Grain Bag and the expansion of local currency settlement mechanisms,” Papa told DW.

A Russian proposal for a single BRICS currency to challenge the dollar remains in the waiting measure, suggesting a future molded by competing financial systems and more by a quilt of scraps of overlapping nets.

Srivastava predicts that the dollar will continue “dominant for years, but parallel settlement systems in Yuan, Rupia and Rublo will grow.” This will not dethron the dollar, he told DW, “but he will gradually undermine his monopoly.”

Originally published by DW on 08/27/2025

By Nik Martin