Opinion: BRICS is not dead and Trump knows it

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Photo: Gabriel Lucas / Arte Metrópoles

In February 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that “BRICS is dead.” However, his own conduct contradicts that statement. By threatening to impose 10% tariffs on all member countries of the bloc and claiming that U.S. pressure led to the emptying of the BRICS summit in Brazil, Trump not only demonstrated that the group is still alive but also that it poses a real threat to the dollar’s hegemony in the international system. His words and actions confirm it: BRICS matters, a lot.

Since its creation, BRICS has been a strategic coalition among emerging countries aiming to reform global governance structures. The idea of creating an alternative financial system that allows transactions in local currencies and reduces dependence on the dollar has been debated for years. Although not yet fully realized, this proposal touches directly on the core of U.S. economic power. That is why it triggers such strong reactions from Washington.

Trump’s obsession with the dollar as the global standard reveals the fear of a world where the United States can no longer use its currency as a tool of influence or punishment. Today, the dominance of the dollar allows the U.S. to impose unilateral sanctions with global impact, freeze foreign assets, and exclude countries from the international financial system. A consistent move toward de-dollarization, with BRICS at the forefront, would limit that power. That is precisely what is at stake.

Saying that BRICS is dead is to ignore the fact that the bloc today brings together countries that represent over 40% of the world’s population and a growing share of global GDP. Moreover, the group is expanding: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates were recently invited, in a move that expands its legitimacy and geoeconomic weight. That is exactly why Trump feels the need to attack it. He knows that a world less dependent on the dollar is a world where U.S. coercive capacity is reduced. And that, for him, is comparable to “losing a world war” (as he said on Friday, July 19, 2025).

BRICS plays an essential role in rebalancing global power. Its importance goes beyond speeches and summits, it lies in the concrete potential to build alternatives to the Western-dominated model. In an increasingly multipolar international scenario, the advance of de-dollarization, driven by BRICS, is not only desirable but inevitable. And that explains why, even as he tries to bury it with words, Trump can’t stop talking about BRICS. He fears the future the bloc represents. And rightly so.