Why President Donald Trump Is Against BRICS

The second Trump presidency has revived a familiar style of muscular rhetoric towards countries perceived to challenge the United States’ economic authority. In this context the collection of states grouped under the BRICS label has again attracted Presidential ire. BRICS began as a loose acronym coined in 2001 by an investment bank to describe a set of fast-growing emerging economies; over time it evolved into a political grouping with ambitions of enhanced financial coordination and a distinct voice in global governance. Since 2022 the organisation has expanded, and its members have become more forthright in their criticisms of Western economic policy. It is therefore unsurprising that President Trump, whose political identity is grounded in a language of national resurgence and economic confrontation, has begun to attack the BRICS nations in terms that mix economic anxiety with geopolitical suspicion. Here we consider the extent to which he is doing so, and the underlying reasons for this new wave of antagonism.

During his first period in office President Trump was already disposed to confront perceived economic competitors. His language towards China set the tone. He asserted that China had grown wealthy through unfair access to United States markets, through currency manipulation and through intellectual property abuses. His administration’s policies reflected these themes, notably the imposition of extensive tariffs. That first period also saw heated disputes with India, sporadic tensions with Brazil over agricultural trade and cross remarks about South Africa’s land reform debates. Russia was a partial exception; President Trump preferred a more ambiguous rhetoric about Moscow, but his administration nevertheless maintained sanctions. In other words the foundations of suspicion towards the original BRICS membership were already present. What has changed in the second term is the breadth of the organisation and the degree to which it is perceived to challenge the financial dominance upon which the United States’ strategic influence depends.

The comparative novelty lies in the BRICS grouping’s explicit ambition to create alternative institutions to those dominated by the United States. The New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, is a modest institution, but it signals the aspiration to diversify lending options away from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. BRICS members have also discussed arrangements for settling trade in local currencies rather than the United States dollar. Although these debates often outpace practical implementation, they matter politically. The United States’ global influence rests upon the world’s continued willingness to hold dollar-denominated assets and to rely upon American financial infrastructure. A sustained attempt to undermine the primacy of the dollar, however tentative in practical terms, strikes at the heart of the country’s strategic model. It is therefore predictable that a President whose worldview prizes national economic power as the principal lever of international influence will interpret BRICS initiatives as a threat.

President Trump’s renewed attacks must also be understood in the context of domestic political incentives. A significant portion of his political base views globalisation with suspicion and interprets multilateral institutions as mechanisms that transfer American wealth abroad. BRICS, with its rhetoric of rebalancing global power, becomes a convenient target in domestic political theatre. The President can assert that the United States is being taken advantage of by a coalition of developing nations, some of which maintain protectionist regimes whilst criticising American policies. This argument allows him to link his foreign policy positions to his broader critique of international trade agreements and his promise to restore manufacturing competitiveness. By attacking BRICS nations, he reinforces a familiar narrative of American victimhood at the hands of foreign states that do not play by the same rules.

Another key reason is the strategic environment created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the gradual alignment of a number of BRICS members with Moscow’s position. Although the grouping is formally non-aligned, Russia uses it as a diplomatic platform to argue that Western sanctions are illegitimate and that the international system requires a radical rebalancing. China, whilst less bellicose in tone, supports many of Russia’s positions in the United Nations Security Council. President Trump’s administration, for all its internal debates, remains committed to a policy of containing Russian influence and preserving the architecture of sanctions that followed the invasion. The growing comfort with which some BRICS states are willing to challenge Western sanctions doctrine aggravates these concerns. The President’s attacks upon the grouping thus become part of a broader effort to defend the legitimacy of Western economic coercion.

At the same time the newer members of the BRICS coalition introduce further irritants. Iran’s accession, for example, causes consternation in Washington. Iran’s participation signals a clear geopolitical intent: to provide a forum for states opposed to United States regional policy in the Middle East. President Trump’s history of confrontation with Tehran, including the withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, makes it politically expedient for him to criticise any organisation that provides Iran with diplomatic legitimacy. Argentina’s former intention to join, later reversed, demonstrated how BRICS expansion could influence debates in Latin America over relations with Washington. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have flirted with greater engagement. For a President who emphasises bilateral relation­ships with Middle Eastern partners, any suggestion that they might find alternative economic or diplomatic centres of gravity is unwelcome.

Although Venezuela is not a member of BRICS (her aspirations to be so were vetoed by Brazil in 2024), the country has a confrontational stance with the United States as exemplified by the current US naval build-up off the Venezuelan coast. The United States, apparently seeking regime change in the country, associates Venezuela, which has substantial oil reservers and is backed by Russia, as part of the BRICS alternative global order as potentially a major economic power given her hydrocarbon potential for global markets.

There is also an ideological dimension that should not be underestimated. President Trump’s political worldview is characterised by a scepticism of multilateral institutions and a preference for transactional bilateral deals in which the United States can exert leverage through her market size and security commitments. BRICS represents the opposite tendency: a collective aspiration by emerging economies to coordinate policies and articulate grievances in a unified manner. Even if BRICS remains loose in practice, its symbolic value challenges the notion that the United States can best advance its interests through bilateral bargaining with weaker states. Attacking BRICS therefore reinforces the administration’s belief in a hierarchical world order in which the United States negotiates from the position of a singular dominant power rather than confronting a coalition.

Whether these attacks are justified depends upon an assessment of BRICS’s actual capacity to reshape global economic governance. In practice the grouping remains heterogeneous in interests and constrained in institutional depth. India and China have profound strategic disagreements. Brazil oscillates between global ambitions and domestic constraints. South Africa confronts her own economic challenges. The addition of new members has widened the grouping’s diplomatic reach, but it may also dilute coherence. Hence President Trump’s rhetoric may exaggerate the practical risk BRICS poses to United States interests. Nevertheless his attacks reflect a broader anxiety about the erosion of Western primacy in global governance. In an era of shifting economic power, the United States must manage the transition without sacrificing its core interests, and presidential rhetoric often provides a barometer of these concerns.

President Trump’s attacks upon the BRICS nations stem from a mixture of economic nationalism, domestic political calculation, geopolitical anxiety and ideological hostility to multilateral groupings that threaten bilateral dominance. The extent of these attacks reflects the symbolic potency of BRICS rather than its immediate practical capabilities. The President’s language may be strident, but beneath it lies a rational calculation: that the United States’ influence is being challenged by a coalition of states articulating an alternative vision for global order. Whether his confrontational approach will preserve American influence or accelerate the fragmentation he fears remains an open question.