Trump Threatens 100 Percent Tariffs on BRICS Members If They Challenge US Dollar – Canada – Mexico – Biden
Members of the BRICS economic bloc have discussed dumping the U.S. dollar and adopting a new shared currency. US President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on members of the BRICS economic bloc who move to adopt a new currency to compete with the U.S. dollar. “The idea that the BRICS countries are trying to move away from the dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social profile. “We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty U.S. dollar or, they will face 100% tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. economy.”
The BRICS countries—which began as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, but have since expanded to Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates—have been banding together to form an economic counterweight to the United States and European Union. Around 40 countries attended the most recent BRICS summit, held in Kazan, Russia, in October. The economic bloc has increasingly considered dumping the U.S. dollar and forming a new shared currency in its place. Part of the U.S. dollar’s strength is its position as the main currency for the international oil trade. BRICS and its partners include numerous fossil fuel producers, and a shift away from the U.S. dollar and toward their own shared currency could undermine the dollar’s position as the oil trade currency. Trump issued his tariff threat in an effort to head off this BRICS currency. “They can go find another ’sucker!’ There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. dollar in international trade, and any country that tries should wave goodbye to America,” he stated. Trump has repeatedly presented tariffs as a tool for the United States to rebalance its economic relationships around the world.
Canada’s ambassador to the United States offered more details about a dinner meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President-elect Donald Trump, following a tariff threat. The prime minister’s meeting on Nov. 29 at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, took place after Trump warned that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods if the country failed to secure the U.S. northern border. Ambassador Kirsten Hillman said that she sat next to the two leaders at the Mar-a-Lago dinner. She said that the Canadian leader had requested an in-person meeting with the president-elect, who invited him to dinner to discuss trade and border issues. During the conversation, Trudeau and Canadian officials stressed that the U.S.–Canada border situation differs from the U.S.–Mexico border. Trump has also threatened to levy a 25 percent tariff on Mexico if it fails to curb drug trafficking and illegal immigration. “The message that our border is so vastly different than the Mexican border was really understood,” Hillman said. Unlike Mexico, she said, there is essentially zero trafficking of fentanyl from Canada to the United States. She added there are seizures but authorities say those are personal use seizures and not criminal trafficking. She said that 99.8 percent of the fentanyl seized by U.S. authorities in the United States comes via Mexico.
“Also with respect to individuals, illegal individuals crossing illegally, Canada last year was less than 1 percent, 0.6 percent were of total interceptions from Canada,” she said. U.S. border authorities apprehended nearly 200,000 illegal and inadmissible immigrants at the U.S.–Canadian border in fiscal year 2024, according to federal data. Hillman said that Canada is ready to make new investments in border security and added that there are more plans for more helicopters, drones, and law enforcement personnel to secure the border. The United States is by far the largest trading partner with Canada, meaning that tariffs could be devastating for the country’s economy. At more than 5,500 miles in length, the border separating the United States and Canada is the longest in the world. “We are one tenth the size of the United States so a balanced trade deal would mean per capita we are buying 10 times more from the U.S. than they are buying from us. If that’s his metric we will certainly engage on that,” Hillman said. Describing the meeting, Hillman said Trudeau and Trump “get along well,” adding that the president-elect told the prime minister he is a fan of Canadian singer Celine Dion.
“I don’t think it could have been better to be frank. Okay, I’ll take that back, I’ll change that. If he obviously said there would be no tariffs that would have been better but there was no realistic expectation of that,” she added. Trudeau told reporters after their meeting in West Palm Beach that he had an “excellent conversation” with Trump, although he did not provide further details. Another top Canadian official said that Ottawa is willing to provide more border security resources following the two leaders’ meeting. Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who also sat at the table with Trump and Trudeau, said that the two talked about new security measures such as drones and personnel. “We’re going to look to procure, for example, additional drones, additional police helicopters, we’re going to redeploy personnel … we believe that the border is secure,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke with Trump by phone last week and said that migrant caravans are not passing through Mexico on their way to the United States. Sheinbaum said that Mexico’s was not to close borders but to build bridges. Aside from Mexico and Canada, the president-elect also warned he would levy an additional 10 percent tariff against China if the Chinese communist regime fails to curb the production of fentanyl precursors that ultimately make their way into the United States via the southern border.
Trump calls Biden’s pardon of his son for tax and firearm charges a ‘Miscarriage of Justice’. “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” Trump stated in a Truth Social post. Biden says his son has been selectively and unfairly prosecuted, arguing that politics had ’infected’ the legal process. The decision also drew criticism not only from Republican politicians, but also from some Democrats. “Does the Pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 Hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? The term “J-6 hostages” refers to people imprisoned for their roles in the Jan 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol, which occurred as Congress was certifying Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump. More than 1,488 people have been charged with crimes related to the breach as of August, according to the Department of Justice.
The outgoing President Biden said on Dec. 1 that he had signed “a full and unconditional pardon” for his son, sparing him from any federal crimes and their associated legal penalties. “There has been an effort to break Hunter—who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” Biden stated. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me—and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here.” Biden added, “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice—and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.” Hunter Biden was charged with nine counts of federal tax evasion to the sum of $1.4 million between 2016 and 2019, to which he pleaded guilty in September. He was also convicted of federal gun charges for illegally purchasing a firearm in 2018 while addicted to drugs. Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) said that he disagreed with the president’s claims that Hunter Biden’s prosecution was a result of “politically-motivated” reasons. “I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong,” Stanton stated on X. “Hunter committed felonies, and was convicted by a jury of his peers.”
Hunter Biden was scheduled to face sentencing on Dec. 12 for gun charges and Dec. 16 for tax charges, but these sentencing hearings are now likely to be canceled. Several Democrats have said that President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, could harm the party or even the country moving forward. The president said in a Dec. 1 statement that he was pardoning Hunter Biden for his tax evasion and gun convictions, along with any other potential crimes he may have committed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1, 2024. Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado said that no one is above the law and that he was disappointed by the decision. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) stated on X that he was shocked by Biden’s decision, considering the president’s previous pledge that he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said that Biden’s move will not only tarnish his reputation but also set a “bad precedent” that could be exploited by future presidents. “While as a father I certainly understand President Joe Biden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country,” Polis stated on X. Polis said that no one is above the law, “not a President and not a President’s son.” Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado wrote on social platform X. The governor said that he believes Hunter Biden “brought the legal trouble he faced on himself, and one can sympathize with his struggles. In an interview with CNN on Monday, Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) stated that Biden’s pardon could harm the party politically, particularly when President-elect Donald Trump begins nominating his choices for the Department of Justice and FBI.
