WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Monday threatened to impose a 100 per cent tariff on the BRICS group nations if they undercut the US dollar.

“We require a commitment... that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty US Dollar or, they will face 100 percent Tariffs,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.

The statement comes after a BRICS summit held last month in Russian city of Kazan, where the countries discussed strengthening local currencies by boosting non-dollar transactions.

The BRICS group, which initially comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, has expanded significantly since its inception in 2009, and now includes countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Egypt as well.

Appoints Kash Patel to lead FBI, family member Massad Boulos as his senior adviser on Arab, Mideast affairs

Altogether the BRICS coalition accounts for a significant minority of the world’s economic output.

Unified BRICS currency

At the Kazan summit in October, Moscow secured a joint declaration encouraging the “strengthening of correspondent banking networks within BRICS and enabling settlements in local currencies in line with BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative.”

But at the end of the summit, Putin indicated that little progress had been made on launching a possible competitor to the Belgium-based SWIFT financial messaging system. “As for SWIFT and any alternatives, we have not created and are not creating any alternatives,” Putin told reporters.

He said, “As for a unified BRICS currency, we are not considering that question at the moment.”

Trump warned if BRICS countries continued with their plans, they “should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy.”

There was no chance that the BRICS would replace the US dollar in international trade, he said, adding that any country that tried should wave goodbye to America.

Patel to lead FBI

On the other hand, the president-elect announced that the former adviser and Pentagon official, Kash Patel, who has been critical of the bureau and is known for his controversial views on a so-called government “deep state”, as his choice as the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), indicating that the agency’s current leader would be replaced.

FBI director Christopher Wray was appointed to a 10-year term in 2017, and Trump’s announcement on his Truth Social network meant Wray would either need to ‘step down or be fired’.

“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

A fierce defender of the incoming president, Patel supports the Republican hardliner notion of an anti-Trump “deep state” of allegedly biased government bureaucrats working to stifle Trump from behind the scenes, even having written a book on the subject.

A son of Indian immigrants, Patel served in several high-level posts during Trump’s first term including as a national security adviser.

“Kash did an incredible job during my first term,” Trump said, adding that the nominee would work to “end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the Border.”

Separately, Trump nominated Chad Chronister, a Florida sheriff, as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). “Chad will work with our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to secure the Border, stop the flow of Fentanyl, and other Illegal Drugs, across the Southern Border, and SAVE LIVES,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Bondi is the president-elect’s pick to lead the Department of Justice. The FBI is the investigative arm of the Department of Justice, while the DEA also falls under its purview.

Meanwhile, Trump named Massad Boulos, Lebanese-American businessman whose son Michael married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, as his senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

“I am proud to announce that Massad Boulos will serve as Senior Adviser to the President on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs,” Trump posted on Truth Social of the appointment, which puts his daughter Tiffany’s father-in-law in a major White House position.

Boulos was a key emissary for the Trump campaign, helping to mobilize Arab American and Muslim voters, many of whom were disaffected with White House policy on the war in Gaza. Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2024