BRICS

Trump’s Tariffs Turbocharge De-Dollarization

May 6, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report BRICS, China, De-dollarization, Donald Trump, Japan, Tariffs

Donald Trump has made it clear that one of his top goals is to maintain the dominance of the US dollar as the global reserve currency. When he was running for president in 2024, Trump promised he would punish any country that sought alternatives to the US currency by hitting them with sky-high tariffs. “Many countries are leaving the dollar. They’re not going to leave the dollar with me!”, Trump vowed at a campaign rally. “I’ll say, ‘You leave the dollar, you’re not doing business with the United States, because we’re going to put 100% tariff on your goods'”. Since Trump has returned for his second term as US president, however, his tariffs and trade war have actually accelerated the decline of the dominance of the US dollar, not slowed it.

Trump’s Tariffs Hurt The United States Much More Than China

April 22, 2025 Michael Hudson, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report BRICS, China, dollar, Donald Trump, Finance, Finance and the Economy, Neoliberalism, Russia, Tariffs, Trade

Why has US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on countries all around the world? And in particular, why is Trump waging a trade war on China? What are his real goals? Well, to try to answer these questions, I spoke with the economist Michael Hudson, who is the author of many books, and who just published the new report “Return of the robber barons: Trump’s distorted view of US tariff history“. Michael Hudson outlined the history of the use of tariffs in the United States and in other countries, and he explained how Trump is using tariffs as a weapon of class war, to benefit the rich at the expense of the vast majority of the population, and also how Trump is trying to reshape the global financial system, in order to benefit the United States at the expense of everyone else.

Can The Global South Get Out Of The US-Dominated Financial System?

April 13, 2025 Zoe Alexandra, People's Dispatch. Create! BRICS, Development, dollar, Global South, IMF, Sovereignty, US Hegemony, World

Is it possible to create systems of trade, finance, and funding outside the US-dominated system? Is the BRICS bloc able to build the necessary alternatives to challenge this system? Economists, academics, and political leaders participating in the IV Dilemmas of Humanity Conference in São Paulo tackled this pressing question that today the nations of the Global South confront. Nations, who find that their plans for poverty alleviation, economic sovereignty, and trade with their neighbors, are held back by restrictions imposed by the United States and their debt commitments, for which they need a reserve of dollars.

This Is Why Trump’s Tariffs Will Fail

April 5, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report ASEAN, BRICS, China, De-dollarization, Donald Trump, Inflation, Japan, Tariffs, Trade, Vietnam

In his first term as president of the United States, Donald Trump launched a trade war against China. In his second term, he has expanded that trade war to many countries around the world. In a ceremony outside the White House on April 2, which the US president dubbed “Liberation Day”, Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on dozens of countries, including high taxes on imports from top US trading partners: 54% on China, 46% on Vietnam, 25% on South Korea, 24% on Japan, and 20% on the European Union. Trump falsely claimed that these tariffs were “reciprocal”, but they were actually unilateral.

JD Vance: West Wants Global South Trapped At Bottom Of Value Chain

March 27, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report BRICS, China, Global South, Globalization, JD Vance, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley, US Imperialism, Wang Yi

US Vice President JD Vance gave a speech about globalization that made it clear that Washington’s goal is to keep formerly colonized countries in the Global South trapped at the bottom of the global value chain. Vance acknowledged that the US-led West wants to maintain a strict international division of labor, in which poor countries in the periphery produce low value-added goods (with lots of competition and therefore low profits), whereas the rich nations in the core extract exorbitant monopoly rents through their control over high value-added technologies (with little to no competition, reinforced by strict intellectual property rights).

‘I Will Wear My Persona Non Grata As A Badge Of Dignity’

March 26, 2025 Pavan Kulkarni, People's Dispatch. Resist! BRICS, China, Cuba, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Genocide, International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa, US Imperialism

Cheering crowds thronged outside the Cape Town International Airport on Sunday, March 23, to welcome the South African ambassador expelled from the US after being subjected to repeated attacks for his stance in solidarity with Palestine. “Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America,” US State Secretary Marco Rubio accused in a X post on March 15. “We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON-GRATA,” Rubio added, sharing the alt-right Breitbart News report on the academic observations Rasool had made on the white supremacist character of the “MAGA movement” in a webinar hosted by a South African think tank.

Global North Has Nine Times More Voting Power At The International Monetary Fund Than Global South

March 7, 2025 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Brazil, BRICS, China, Global North, Global South, History, International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations (UN), US Imperialism, Venezuela

As far as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is concerned, each person in the Global North is worth nine people in the Global South. We get that calculation from IMF data on voting power in the organisation relative to the population of the Global North and Global South states. Each country, based on its ‘relative economic position’, as the IMF suggests, is given voting rights to elect delegates to the IMF’s executive board, which makes all of the organisation’s important decisions. A brief glance at the board shows that the Global North is vastly overrepresented in this crucial multilateral institution for indebted countries.

Trump Wants US To ‘Partner’ With Russia To Weaken China

February 24, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report Antony Blinken, BRICS, China, CIA, dollar, Donald Trump, Finance and the Economy, Greenland, Henry Kissinger, Iran, JD Vance, Joe Biden, John Ratcliffe, Marco Rubio, Mike Pompeo, Panama, Panama Canal, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, Russia, Technology, Trump Administration, Tucker Carlson, Ukraine, William Burns, Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Donald Trump administration is holding talks between the United States and Russia, and he says he wants to end the war in Ukraine. Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has even proposed that the US could “partner with the Russians, geopolitically”. What is happening here? The simple answer is that this is all about China. Trump is trying to divide Russia from China, in an attempt to isolate Beijing. The United States sees China as the number one threat to its global dominance. This has been stated clearly by top officials in both the Trump administration and the previous Joe Biden administration.

Southcom’s Double-Speak; Every Accusation Is A Confession

February 21, 2025 Francisco Dominguez and Roger D. Harris, Popular Resistance. Educate! BRICS, Latin America, Multipolar World, SouthCom, US Imperialism

Admiral Alvin Hosley demonstrated selective outrage over the fear of multipolarity in the Western Hemisphere. The Southcom commander confirmed the official US military doctrine for the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region on February 13, before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In a poorly disguised assertion of US hegemony, Hosley envisioned, “an enduring commitment to democratic principles…to engender security, capability, democratic norms, and resilience that fuel regional peace, prosperity, and sovereignty.”

What Is A ‘Multipolar’ World?

February 17, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report BRICS, China, Donald Trump, Gaza, Greenland, Latin America, Marco Rubio, Monroe Doctrine, Multipolarity, Panama, US Imperialism

It is now widely acknowledged that the world is multipolar. This is so uncontroversial that the Munich Security Conference chose the title “Multipolarization” for its 2025 annual report. However, there is not a common definition of “multipolarity”. The Munich Security Report noted that, while “the world’s ‘multipolarization’ is a fact”, the “international system shows elements of unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity, and nonpolarity”, in which “multiple order models co-exist, compete, or clash”. Governments have radically different understandings of the meaning of multipolarity.

Should Canada Be Ready To Switch Sides?

February 15, 2025 Jen St. Denis, The Tyee. Educate! BRICS, Canada, Tariffs, Trade, Trump Administration

Jeff Rubin is the former chief economist for CIBC World Markets and is the bestselling author of a number of popular economics books that have tried to explain how the world is changing and departing from the norms of the 20th century to a more unsettled era of scarcity, inequality, natural disasters and war. His previous books have warned about the end of cheap oil and explained how the middle class “got screwed” by globalization. Rubin’s latest book is called The Map of the New Normal: How Inflation, War, and Sanctions Will Change Your World Forever, and it tackles the rapid inflation that hit economies across the globe in the wake of pandemic measures.

The Boomerang Effect: Shortsighted Policies Cause Decline Of US Hegemony

January 27, 2025 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG BRICS, Donald Trump, Global Economy, Multipolar World, Sanctions

The world is changing rapidly, driven by the necessity of creating alternative institutions to counter US domination and aggression. As the multipolar world rises, it is a critical time for the United States to re-evaluate and change its policies and practices in order to remain an active member of the global community. Clearing the FOG speaks with Ben Norton of Geopolitical Economy about the ways that US policy, the Washington Consensus, have backfired and what the growing US deficit means. Norton outlines what can be done to counter the current path the US is taking.

Trump’s Tariff Threats Could Destabilize The Global Economy

January 26, 2025 Michael Hudson, Geopolitical Economy. Educate! BRICS, Canada, Debt, dollar, Donald Trump, Finance, Mexico, protectionism, Tariffs, Trade

Trump told the Davos Economic Forum January 23: “My message to every business in the world is very simple: Come make your product in America and we will give you among the lowest taxes of any nation on earth.” Otherwise, if they continue to try and produce at home or in other countries, their products will be charged tariff rates at Trump’s threatened 20%. To Germany this means (my paraphrase): “Sorry your energy prices have quadrupled. Come to America and get them at almost as low a price as you were paying Russia before your elected leaders let us cut Nord Stream off.”

BRICS Expands To 54.6% Of World Population By Adding Nigeria

January 19, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report Africa, BRICS, Finance and the Economy, Global Economy, Indonesia, Nigeria, OPEC

BRICS continues to grow. On 17 January, it officially admitted Nigeria as a new partner country. Nigeria has the world’s sixth-largest population, with the biggest population on the African continent. In addition to being Africa’s second-largest economy, Nigeria is the number one oil producer on the continent. With the addition of Nigeria, BRICS now has 10 full members and nine partners. At the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia in 2024, the organization adopted a comprehensive plan to transform the international monetary and financial system, by challenging the dominance of the US dollar and promoting trade and settlement in local currencies. Together, the extended BRICS+ group represents 54.6% of the world population.

BRICS Grows, Adding Indonesia As Member

January 7, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report Brazil, BRICS, China, CIA, Indonesia, industrial policy, Industrialization, nickel, Sukarno

Indonesia is the world’s number one producer of nickel, by a large margin. Nickel is an important mineral needed for renewable energy technologies like batteries and solar panels. In the past decade, the Indonesian government has embarked upon an ambitious industrialization program. Through careful state planning and industrial policy, Jakarta banned the export of raw minerals and, with strategic investments from Chinese state-owned enterprises and favorable loans from Chinese state-owned banks, Indonesia has moved up the value chain, processing nickel at home, instead of simply exporting the ore.

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