US Govât Is Very Afraid of BRICS and Dedollarization, Trump Insiders Reveal. Thatâs Why Heâs Attacking Brazil
By Ben Norton – Jul 14, 2025
Close Donald Trump allies like Steve Bannon say âthe president is pissed every time he looks at the BRICS de-dollarization effortâ. The US is trying to make an example out of Brazil, threatening high tariffs to punish Lula da Silva, who promotes a multipolar world and a new global reserve currency.
Western corporate media coverage of the Global South-led organization BRICS is frequently dismissive and condescending. Bloomberg published an article claiming that BRICS is âlittle more than a meaningless acronymâ.
It appears that a lot of this criticism, nevertheless, is actually a coping mechanism, because evidence is piling up showing that the US government is very afraid of the rapid growth of BRICS.
Donald Trump, in particular, is terrified of the possibility of BRICS challenging the global dominance of the US dollar.
BRICS held a successful summit in Brazil in July, featuring for the first time the participation of 10 members and 10 partner countries.
The 2025 BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Trump responded with furious denunciation, threatening to hit all BRICS countries with 10% tariffs.
Trump then delivered an angry rant against BRICS at the White House, in a meeting with his cabinet on 8 July.
What the US president said was deeply contradictory. It was like SchrĂśdingerâs BRICS: the organization is not a threat, but also the biggest threat in the world, according to Trump.
Trump simultaneously claimed that BRICS is ânot a serious threatâ, but also that it is trying to âdestroy the dollarâ, and that, if the United States lost the exorbitant privilege it receives as the issuer of the global reserve currency, it âwould be like losing a war, a major world war; we would not be the same country any longerâ.
âThe dollar is king, and weâre going to keep it that way!â Trump declared.
These were Trumpâs indignant remarks (emphasis added):
They have to pay 10% if theyâre in BRICS. Because BRICS was set up to hurt us. BRICS was set up to degenerate our dollar, and take our dollar as the standard, take it off as the standard.
And thatâs okay if they want to play that game, but I can play that game, too. So anybody thatâs in BRICs is getting a 10% charge.
âŚ
If theyâre a member of BRICS, theyâre going to have to pay a 10% tariff, just for that one thing. And they wonât be a member long.
I thought BRICS was â you know, I said this about a year ago, and it largely broke up. But, you know, there are a couple of them hanging around, but I thought it largely broke up.
BRICS is not, in my opinion, not a serious threat. But what theyâre trying to do is destroy the dollar, so that another country can take over and be the standard. And weâre not going to lose the standard, at any time.
If you have a smart president, you will never lose the standard. If you have a stupid president, like the last one, you would lose the standard. You wouldnât have the dollar as [the standard].
And if we lost the world standard dollar, that would be like losing a war, a major world war; we would not be the same country any longer. Weâre not going to let that happen.
The dollar â you never hear the expression âthe dollar is kingâ? The dollar is king, and weâre going to keep it that way, ok?
Trump is extremely âpissedâ at BRICS and dedollarization
Politico published an article, citing sources very close to the US president, that revealed that Trump is enraged about the expansion of BRICS and its push for global dedollarization.
âYou can tell the president is pissed every time he looks at the BRICS de-dollarization effortâ, former top Trump aide Steve Bannon told Politico.
The success of the BRICS summit in âRio didnât helpâ, Bannon added.
Bannon served as CEO of Trumpâs presidential campaign in 2016, and was the White House chief strategist in 2017.
Bannon, who previously worked at major Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs, is a far-right demagogue who proudly stated in 2018, âWeâre at war with Chinaâ.
Similar comments were made by a former State Department official, Leland Lazarus, who served as a special assistant to the commander of Southern Command, which oversees the US militaryâs operations in Latin America.
Lazarus told Politico that Trump is using tariffs threats on BRICS countries âto try to peel off new members like Egypt, Ethiopia, and Indonesiaâ.
Lazarus emphasized that Brazilâs closer relations with China, and their mutual moves to dedollarize and trade in their local currencies, âmay be triggering alarms within Trumpâs circle, especially among advisers who view global dollar supremacy as a pillar of U.S. powerâ.
Another Trump ally, Mauricio Claver-Carone, who served as the Republican presidentâs special envoy to Latin America during his first term, told Politico that Trump had already been livid at Brazilâs left-wing President Lula da Silva, but âBRICS tipped the scaleâ.
Trump attacks Brazil, a key player in the new multipolar world order
The prominent role of Brazil in BRICS, as a major player in the new multipolar global order, has made it a target of US aggression.
Following the Rio de Janeiro summit in July, Trump threatened to impose massive tariffs of 50% on Brazil.
The US president is trying to make an example out of the Latin American nation, to punish Lula for challenging US global hegemony, moving closer to China, challenging the dollar, and promoting BRICS as a multipolar vanguard.
Lula was one of the co-founders of BRICS in 2009 (back when it was BRIC). The Brazilian leftist leader has long advocated for the Global South-led organization to play a more important role in international affairs.
The 2010 summit of BRIC â which expanded that year into BRICS, by adding South Africa
The Brazilian president has strongly supported dedollarization, and has repeatedly called for the creation of a new global reserve currency, to replace the US dollar.
Trump (and Elon Musk) blatantly meddles in Brazilâs internal affairs
Trump is using tariffs as a weapon of economic warfare to meddle in Brazilâs internal political affairs.
The US presidentâs goal is also to help Brazilâs far-right former president, Jair Bolsonaro, who is a loyal Trump ally.
Donald Trump and Brazilâs far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro gifted each other jerseys at the White House in 2019
Trump hopes his tariffs will hurt the Brazilian economy and damage Lulaâs image, to tip the scale in support of the Bolsonarista right as the 2026 election approaches.
To justify this blatant US meddling in Brazilâs internal affairs, Trump absurdly claimed that there is a legal âwitch huntâ against Bolsonaro.
In reality, Bolsonaro is facing legal consequences because, after he lost the 2022 election, he tried to carry out a military coup in early 2023, to prevent the democratically elected Lula from assuming the presidency.
Bolsonaro admitted in court that he met with Brazilian military leaders and discussed ways to hold on to power, even after the majority of the people of his country voted against him.
Far-right political figures in the West have thrown their weight behind Bolsonaro.
Another Bolsonaro ally is the worldâs richest centibillionaire oligarch, Elon Musk.
Musk despises Lula, not only because the Brazilian president is left wing and wants to significantly increase taxes on the ultra-rich and crack down on tax avoidance, but also because Lula has challenged Muskâs business interests in the massive South American nation.
Musk has used the social media platform Twitter, which is his personal property, to promote anti-Lula and pro-Bolsonaro propaganda.
Both Trump and Musk falsely allege that Lula and the Brazilian government are violating free speech, to justify their political meddling in the Latin American countryâs internal affairs, and to support the far-right failed coup leader.
This issue, however, has nothing to do with âfree speechâ. It is about the Brazilian governmentâs right to defend its sovereignty and resist flagrant interventionism by the US empire.
US empire violates sovereignty of Brazil (and Latin America as a whole)
There is a very long history of the US government supporting far-right coups dâetat against democratically elected left-wing leaders in Latin America â including Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, Argentina in 1976, Haiti in 1991 and 2004, Honduras in 2009, Venezuela in 2002, 2014, 2017, and 2019, and many, many more.
Following a US-backed far-right coup against Boliviaâs democratically elected socialist President Evo Morales in 2019, Musk declared on Twitter, âWe will coup whoever we want! Deal with itâ.
The US government has also been involved in numerous putsches in Brazil, going back to an infamous military coup in 1964.
In 2016 and 2018, the US government backed two soft coups, or judicial coups, against Brazilâs President Dilma Rousseff and Lula, both from the left-wing Workersâ Party.
Dilma was impeached on false accusations of âcorruptionâ in a 2016 regime-change operation.
As Brazilâs leader, Dilma had strongly advocated for BRICS, Global South empowerment, good relations with China, and multipolarity â which made her the target of Washingtonâs wrath.
Today, Dilma is president of the BRICS bank, the New Development Bank, where she has likewise advocated for dedollarization.
Brazilâs left-wing former presidents Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva at the BRICS New Development Bank in Shanghai
In the lead-up to Brazilâs presidential election in 2018, Lula was leading in the polls, but he was imprisoned on fake accusations of âcorruptionâ, by US-backed right-wing judges, who essentially installed Bolsonaro as president.
In 2021, the Brazilian supreme court annulled the fake, politically motivated charges of âcorruptionâ against Lula.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee conducted an investigation into the situation in Brazil, led by experts on international law, and concluded in 2022 that the show trial against Lula had been illegitimate and violated his civil rights and due process.
The US government was deeply involved in both of these right-wing political coups in Brazil, in 2016 and 2018. They constitute a textbook case of âlawfareâ, or judicial warfare.
This is why Lula himself said, âEverything that is happening has the hand of the United States on itâ. He underscored that âthe US created the Lava Jato investigationâ, in reference to the supposed âanti-corruptionâ scheme, known as Operation Car Wash, that was cynically used as cover to carry out the coups.
This is also why, in 2025, Lula is pushing back against Donald Trumpâs heavy-handed meddling in Brazilâs internal affairs.
In response to Trumpâs tariff threats and false accusations that the Brazilian government is carrying out a âwitch huntâ against Bolsonaro, Lula stated:
Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage.
The judicial proceedings against those responsible for planning the coup dâĂŠtat fall exclusively under the jurisdiction of Brazil´s Judicial Branch and, as such, are not subject to any interference or threats that could compromise the independence of national institutions.
Lula likewise pledged to hit back against Trumpâs unilateral announcement of 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods with Brazilâs own retaliatory tariffs of 50% on US goods.
âWeâre going to have to look for other partners to buy our products. Brazilâs trade with the US represents 1.7% of its GDPâ, Lula explained. âItâs not like we canât survive without the USâ.
The Brazilian president noted that the successful BRICS summit âlikely worried Trumpâ, according to a report in Bloomberg. Lula then doubled down on his calls for dedollarization.
âWe are interested in creating a trade currency among other countriesâ, the Brazilian leader stressed. âIâm not obligated to buy dollars to conduct trade with Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Sweden, the European Union, or China. We can trade in our own currenciesâ.
Ben Norton
Benjamin Norton is the founder and editor of the independent news website Multipolarista, where he does original reporting in both English and Spanish. Benjamin has reported from numerous countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia, and more. His journalistic work has been published in dozens of media outlets, and he has done interviews on Sky News, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, El Financiero Bloomberg, Al Mayadeen teleSUR, RT, TRT World, CGTN, Press TV, HispanTV, Sin Censura, and various TV channels in Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Benjamin writes a regular column for Al Mayadeen (in English and Spanish). He was formerly a reporter with the investigative journalism website The Grayzone, and previously produced the political podcast and video show Moderate Rebels. His personal website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
