Trump's Threats Against BRICS Are Based On False Premises
Putin doesn’t hate the dollar and actually wants Russia to once again be able to use it with its partners for reasons of convenience, but it was the US that forced his country to de-dollarize and pioneer alternative financial instruments out of necessity.
Trump threatened over the weekend to impose 100% tariffs on those BRICS members that either help create a new BRICS currency or back any replacements to the dollar. This was in response to reports over the past year of Russia’s BRICS chairmanship about this group’s alleged plans. Influential members of the Alt-Media Community fueled this speculation with their wishful thinking claims, but the last BRICS Summit didn’t achieve anything of tangible significance, which was explained here: https://thealtworld.com/andrew_korybko/did-the-latest-brics-summit-achieve-anything-of-tangible-significance-at-all
Neither BRICS’ most passionate enthusiasts nor its most zealous critics alike can admit that no new currency is on the horizon and none of its members’ currencies will replace the dollar. While it’s true that they’re using national currencies more frequently, this was only due to the need to work around the US’ unilateral sanctions on Russia that were imposed after its special operation. Russia is still an energy and agricultural superpower so its partners couldn’t comply with them without hurting their interests too.
Putin also declared during early September’s Eastern Economic Forum that “we are not conducting a policy of de-dollarisation. We did not renounce settlements in dollars; they denied us such settlements, and we were simply forced to look for other options, this is it… Why are they acting this way?”
“[The US] ruined relations with Russia, constantly impose sanctions and this, eventually, negatively affects the US and the US dollar. The whole world started contemplating whether US dollars should be used since the United States, for political reasons, restricts the use of the US dollar as a universal international payment unit. Everyone started considering this, and the volume of US dollar use is slowly, in small increments dropping both in settlements and currency reserves.”
Putin elaborated even more on this subject at a press conference after that summit:
“I believe this is a terrible mistake by the US financial authorities, because the strength of the US today is built on the dollar. And yet, they are cutting off the very foundation of their own power. It seemed to me that the dollar is like a sacred cow, something that should never be disturbed. But no, they have taken it into their own hands and essentially cut off its horns, stopped taking care of it, and instead are exploiting it recklessly…We are not engaged in a battle, our proposals are not set against the dollar.”
As can be seen, Putin doesn’t hate the dollar and actually wants Russia to once again be able to use it with its partners for reasons of convenience, but it was the US that forced his country to de-dollarize and pioneer alternative financial instruments out of necessity. This is a far cry from how he’s misportrayed by friends and foes alike, each in pursuit of diametrically opposed ideological agendas, the false impression of which was responsible for Trump’s threats against BRICS after he fell for their claims.
The reality is that while de-dollarization trends exist and have sped up since the US’ unprecedented sanctions against Russia nearly three years ago, they’re nowhere near challenging the dollar’s dominance, and a lot of what’s already been achieved can realistically be reversed or decelerated. All that Trump has to do is lift these selfsame sanctions, though he’s unlikely to do so unilaterally, let alone all at once. He’ll want to receive something from Russia first, but Russia might not be able to provide it.
Therein lies the dilemma that Trump’s found himself in. Incipient de-dollarization trends pose a latent threat to one of the pillars upon which the US’ unipolar hegemony is maintained. It won’t materialize anytime soon, but downplaying or ignoring it could prove disastrous in the long term. At the same time, while the solution of lifting the sanctions is simple enough, it’s politically unfeasible in the current context given domestic and international pressures.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trumps-threats-against-brics-are-based-false-premises
