“Dead,” you say? I hardly think so.

But Donald Trump said so, and therefore it must be true . . . right?

Nah. What he said last week — after threatening the BRICS member nations with 150% tariffs if they attempted to promote an alternative currency to the U.S. dollar — was this:

“BRICS states were trying to destroy our dollar. They wanted to create a new currency. So when I came in, the first thing I said was any BRICS state that even mentions the destruction of the dollar will be charged a 150% tariff, and we don’t want your goods and the BRICS states just broke up. . . . I don’t know what the hell happened to them. We haven’t heard from the BRICS states lately.” [NDTV.com, February 21, 2022.]

It’s difficult to separate the truth from the imaginary in anything said by someone who can’t remember his own words. Because in January, Trump had threatened — not 150% — but a 100% tariff if the BRICS nations wanted to “play games.” [NDTV.com, February 14, 2022.] At a press briefing at that time, he was asked whether he wanted to dismantle BRICS or become a part of it, to which he responded:

“I don’t care, but BRICS was put there for a bad purpose and most of those people don’t want it. They don’t even want to talk about it now. They’re afraid to ask about it because I told them if they want to play games with the dollar, then they’re going to be hit with a 100 per cent tariff. The day they mention that they want to do it and they will come back and say we beg you, we beg you not to do this. BRICS is dead since I mentioned that. BRICS died the minute I mentioned that and know I remember when Obama and Biden, in particular, I guess he said that oh, they have us over a barrel.” [Id.] [Bold emphasis is mine.]

I just want to know one thing: What on earth has Donald Trump been smoking?!! Because there is not one phrase in all of that gobbledegook that makes an ounce of sense.

To begin with, BRICS is neither dead nor dying. If they were, would they have added five new members — Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates — since last year, doubling their size? And would they have added a new membership category — “Partner States” — in 2024 to accommodate the integration of prospective members?

Those Partner States are effectively observers, not yet officially part of the BRICS bloc, but guaranteed of support from the full members. Thus far, some 22 countries have been invited to become Partner States. Only three — Algeria, Turkiye and Vietnam — had not yet confirmed their status as of mid-January.

And if, as Trump would like to believe, BRICS were indeed finished, would they even now be busily planning their 2025 Summit in July, to be hosted in Brazil?

*. *. *

To be sure, Donald Trump is not wrong in considering BRICS a threat to U.S. supremacy — in fact, to the entire structure of the Western world. It was founded by Vladimir Putin in 2009 for the sole purpose of building an organization strong enough to run counter to NATO, the EU, the G7, and — who knows? — possibly even the United Nations.

But if Trump thinks throwing tariffs at the member states is going to cause them to put their chairs back on the table and slink home in defeat, he is living in an alternate reality.

Because, with Vladimir Putin at the helm, it isn’t going to be that easy.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/24/25