President Donald Trump, who threatened to impose 100% tariffs after winning the US elections in November, warned BRICS nations on Thursday not to replace the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. "We are going to seek a pledge from these supposedly antagonistic Countries that they will neither develop a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar otherwise, they will face 100% Tariffs," Trump stated in a post on the social networking site TruthSocial.

Russia stated in December 2024 that any effort to compel the BRICS nations to adopt the dollar would simply increase demand for their own currencies. According to a 2024 study by the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Centre, the US dollar is still widely used as a principal reserve currency. It also demonstrated that efforts to create alternative currencies, including the euro, had failed to overtake the US dollar.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates are the countries that make up the BRICS alliance. Although the group lacks a single currency, talks have accelerated after Russia was sanctioned by a number of western nations for its involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

To reduce the flow of illegal immigration and opioids like fentanyl, Donald Trump has also promised to levy 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, two of his neighbours, starting on February 1.

The president of the United States has also threatened to impose a 10% import duty on China, arguing that the nation's role as a supplier of fentanyl was detrimental to the United States.