{"id":313426,"date":"2025-08-10T06:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T06:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=313426"},"modified":"2025-08-11T07:21:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T07:21:55","slug":"trumps-trade-tantrums-and-bullying-hit-a-wall-of-solid-brics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=313426","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s trade tantrums and bullying hit a wall of solid BRICS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strategic Review \u2013 Aug 8, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s estimation of American power, like that of his own abilities, is increasingly seen to be badly overblown. This week, he threatened some 90 nations with tough trade penalties in the form of double-digit tariffs on their exports to the United States. It remains to be seen if he will actually implement the measures. Trump already cancelled a plan to impose worldwide tariffs back in April \u2013 his so-called Liberation Day \u2013 after no doubt realizing, or his more informed advisors realizing, that the U.S. cannot win a global trade war.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing about Trump, it is that he is as quick to reverse threats as he is to issue them. The erratic behavior speaks of the muddled thinking and lack of coherent analysis in his so-called policies. Trump\u2019s reversals also speak of the limits to U.S. power as the world shifts to different realities in geopolitics and geoeconomics. The American power that Trump thinks exists is no longer.<\/p>\n

This disconnect was evinced this week as Trump threatened tariffs on Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The so-called secondary levies were supposed to be related to Trump\u2019s deadline for Russia to reach a peace deal with Ukraine. Countries buying Russian oil are \u201cfueling the war machine,\u201d he claimed. India hit back<\/a> at what it called ridiculous hypocrisy, pointing out that the European Union purchased more Russian oil last year than India. The U.S. also buys billions of dollars-worth of Russian agricultural fertilizer, uranium, and other minerals.<\/p>\n

In any case, the four countries targeted by Trump for secondary tariffs firmly rebuffed his threats. They dismissed Trump\u2019s intimidation and vowed to continue exercising their sovereign right to do business as they deem necessary for their national interests.<\/p>\n

It is not clear what the White House will do next in the aftermath of such defiance. Trump\u2019s habit of extending deadlines for tariffs may postpone action.<\/p>\n

The surprise announcement that Russian President Vladimir Putin is to meet Trump in person sometime next week, perhaps in the United Arab Emirates, may also persuade the American side to drop the secondary tariffs plan. Trump\u2019s egotistical craving to be seen as a peacemaker in Ukraine is such that a summit with Putin may be enough to appease his desire for headlines and a shot at winning the Nobel Peace Prize. His overblown claims about mediating peace between India and Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia, and between Israel and Hamas show him to be driven by superficial success.<\/p>\n

The defiance of the BRICS nations this week in the face of Trump\u2019s bullying was remarkable for several reasons. It demonstrated that the BRICS are emerging as a powerful, cohesive economic and geopolitical force. After 16 years since the international organization\u2019s founding, its leverage is no longer abstract or theoretical. It\u2019s becoming a concrete reality.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s President Lula da Silva mockingly stated that Trump was \u201cnot the emperor of the world,\u201d and he called for a special BRICS summit to galvanize a joint response to U.S. trade threats. China condemned Washington\u2019s bullying and said that the unilateral imposition of tariffs was a violation of the United Nations Charter. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his top national security adviser to meet with Putin in the Kremlin. It was also reported<\/a> this week that Modi is to travel to China later this month to attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. These developments suggest that the BRICS are solidifying their commitment to advancing a multilateral global order in response to Trump\u2019s belligerence.<\/p>\n

As with so much of Trump\u2019s capricious conduct and attitude, he is rallying international forces that are hastening the demise of American standing and power, ironically for a president who boasts about \u201cmaking America great again.\u201d An article<\/a> by renowned international economist Michael Hudson illustrates how ill-conceived Trump\u2019s trade war with the planet is. Hudson contends that the tariffs will fuel consumer inflation in the U.S. as Americans pay more for expensive imports. Republican Senator Rand Paul agrees with this assessment. He claims that the tariffs will add $2 trillion in taxes on U.S. consumers.<\/p>\n

Another impact that Team Trump seems unaware of is that the world economy is sufficiently diversified that countries will be able to find alternative markets for their exports. That will result in more countries being less dependent on the dollar for trade settlements, which, in turn, will weaken the greenback and the U.S.\u2019s ability to keep piling up its astronomical national debt. The system is, therefore, liable to crash the more Trump imposes trade penalties on other nations.<\/p>\n

It is also becoming clear that the BRICS represent a historic challenge to the U.S.-led Western order. The more Trump tries to undermine the emerging multipolar order, the more strongly it emerges. Earlier this year, Trump claimed<\/a> that the BRICS were dead after he threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on what he labelled an anti-American bloc. His rumors of BRICS\u2019 death are greatly exaggerated. The international forum keeps steadily growing, gaining a significant new member, Indonesia, this year \u2013 the fourth most populous country in the world. BRICS represent over 50 percent of the world\u2019s GDP and about 40 percent of its population. It has surpassed the Western-dominated G7 group in terms of economic power.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s tariff tantrums have little to do with bringing peace to Ukraine and a lot more to do with trying to break up the BRICS, which is a growing challenge to U.S. hegemony. This week shows that the BRICS have acquired a new sense of their own confidence and purpose in creating an alternative to the U.S.-dominated system. Trump\u2019s arrogance and lack of understanding of the new realities of the global economy and the world\u2019s resolve for long-overdue justice and peace, particularly for the Global South, are precipitating the demise of the U.S.-run neocolonialist order.<\/p>\n

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, among many other nations, are showing a resilience and defiance to U.S. imperialist bullying that would have been thought unlikely only a few years ago. Their commitment to mutual development and a fairer world order is making the U.S.-dominated elite Western capitalist system less relevant and less viable. The enormous trade deficits that the U.S. has accumulated over decades, in line with its monstrous national debt<\/a> of $37 trillion, mean that it needs the rest of the world to keep its essentially parasitic position intact. The integration of the multipolar global economy under the leadership of the BRICS is showing that U.S. power has become increasingly redundant and indeed something to repudiate. It is hitting a wall of solid BRICS.<\/p>\n

On the ominous side, however, that is why the U.S. rulers are becoming so insanely warmongering. Will they try to blow up a dead-end?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The enormous trade deficits that the U.S. has accumulated over decades, together with its monstrous national debt of $37 trillion, mean that it needs the rest of the world to maintain its essentially parasitic position. The leadership of the BRICS is showing that U.S. power has become increasingly redundant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":208263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,66,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Economics","category-Inside_the_White_House_and_Washingtons_Beltway"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313427,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313426\/revisions\/313427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/208263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}