On the 7th and 8th of July 2025, while Donald Trump was meeting Benjamin Netanyahu, an indictee of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity, his main attention was on BRICS, which he threatened for leading in a path of optimism than following Washington-sponsored endless crises, wars, and neocolonialism.
Jittery Even When Not Pursued
BRICS completed a 2-day summit on the July 7th, 2025, in Brazil. On July 9th, the theatrical US leader proceeded to impose 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods sent to the US, after sensing the futility of his threats in derailing the optimism that BRICS radiates to the Global South. Meanwhile, the BRICS summit entailed members discussing matters pertinent to them, something that Trump cannot. A closer look reveals that the presence of this Alliance inspires optimism in the Global South, which threatens Washington’s empire of chaos and desperation designed to feed America’s hero’s syndrome.
Perennial Failure Without Reflection
Trump’s threats against BRICS come when Washington’s initiatives to lead the world have been implemented since the 1990s and spectacularly failed to bring security stability and economic prosperity to the Global South. These initiatives have also failed the majority in Western societies, except the oligarchs. Nevertheless, Washington’s thinking is stuck in the early 1990s, after it had misled the Western world in containing and collapsing the Eastern Bloc, and proceeded to pretend to offer leadership to the world. In hindsight, this leadership involved dragging the world through endless chaos, wars, and plunder of the former Eastern Bloc and the Global South.
Still, before the early 1990s, the US had engineered several conflicts including the Iraq-Iran war, the first Gulf War, and others, bringing multiple countries to their knees but posed as presenting hope. In post-Soviet times, the world followed America’s lead into endless tensions and wars in the Balkans, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel. Those following the US are not supposed to imagine any end to chaos and wars, noting how Washington is currently nudging its vassals to prepare for more decades of wars against Iran, Russia, and China. Currently, Washington has maintained an ongoing genocide in Gaza, through Israel, and uses conflicts including the Russia-Ukraine war to threaten respective regions and scare allies to embark on rearmament.
It demands that all countries suspend their developmental needs and join it, as it pretends to quell endless conflicts of its own making. After following Washington for decades without attaining positive results, the Global South is exhausted and seeks sensible alternatives in development partners. BRICS countries represent a different path based on production, trade and development. Surprisingly, Washington in its hubris ignores the reality that most people no longer view its endless wars as unavoidable, or useful. Most in the Global South have resolved to pursue citizens’ developmental needs even amidst Washington’s endless crises, which explains why BRICS membership continues to expand. It also explains why the Russians and Iranians participated in the BRICS-2025 summit and prioritized trade and economic development, even while they fight off and prepare to defeat future US-curated aggression.
BRICS becomes intolerable to the US establishment because it presents optimism to the Global South. Its latest summit delved into ways of enhancing trade in products and services, which is fitting since its members have immense potential for economic growth. Most are rich in mineral resources and energy and produce significant volumes of agricultural products, which expands their potential for further development and lifting their partners out of poverty, spelling optimism that unnerves Washington’s peddlers of endless chaos.
In addition, BRICS’ leading members such as Russia and China have advanced manufacturing and space programs that produce cutting-edge systems for military and civilian uses, developmental leaps they made despite Washington’s distraction, meddling, and sabotage through containment. Their immense resources, industrial bases, and growth potential necessitate means of exchange that cannot be restricted through the West’s malicious sanctions. The organization is responding to these sanctions by promoting the use of their national currencies in trade among members, which will curtail Washington’s profiting from their trade by charging for the use of the US Dollar. Washington, despite traditionally benefiting from other countries’ using its currency in international settlement, was driven to sanction emerging economies by greed for more control of their resources. It has used sanctions in attempts to collapse emerging economies or soften them up for military intervention followed by plunder, efforts that have backfired and will increasingly fail as BRICS continues to strengthen. The thought that BRICS can help members to use their national currencies to invigorate their economies and gain more control of their resources irks Washington, which is stuck in a colonial mindset.
Misplaced Priorities and Inability to Change
Trump’s threats against BRICS also hide his country’s misplaced priorities and inability to generate faster economic growth. He leads a command economy, where the government dictates sectors that develop through massive subsidies for instance in green energy, chip manufacturing, and the military, but has still failed to outcompete others. During the latest NATO summit at The Hague, Washington threatened members to expand military budgets to 5% of their GDPs, hence commanding the Military Industrial Sector to grow. Henceforth, Trump hopes to use the expanded NATO to force countries to relinquish their economies for US exploitation, when the effectiveness of sanctions and tariffs wane. His attempts at controlling the global economy can be deduced from his Tariff campaign starting on April 2nd, 2025 when he attempted to penalize countries for economically outcompeting the US. Tariffs were designed to force countries to produce in small quantities and leave market share for the uncompetitive US industries.
Similarly, Washington had earlier attempted to curtail Russian, Iranian, and Venezuelan oil production to give the US a higher market share. Equally, the US treasury claimed that China was overproducing and hence needed American assistance in production quotas to leave market share for uncompetitive industries in the US in the so-called “rebalancing“. Trump’s tariff campaign failed since countries declined to deliberately subjugate their economies to the US interests. With Washington stuck in militarism and an economy that fails to house or employ a large percentage of its population, leading them into drug addiction, it is tending to further belligerence and threats. Trump’s threats against BRICS will fail again, while the US will miss another opportunity to find workable ways of revamping its economy and relating with other countries based on mutual respect.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa
