NEW YORK, December 3. /TASS/. Trump's tactic to stop the de-dollarization of the BRICS countries by using pressure and threatening to impose high duties risks backfiring, experts interviewed by Bloomberg said.
According to them, such tactics are pushing countries to jointly seek alternatives to the dollar.
"If Trump increases the pressure on BRICS, it may well accelerate a move away from the dollar," said Rodrigo Catril, a strategist at National Australia Bank Ltd.
In addition, the agency notes that Trump's public promises to increase import duties are increasing volatility in the currency market. As a result, according to estimates by Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former US Treasury official, it "suggests a lack of confidence in the dollar,"
The agency recalls that Trump had previously warned the BRICS countries that he intended to oblige them to create a new currency as an alternative to the dollar. He also promised to impose 100% duties on imported products from these countries otherwise.
"From today, anyone outside the US who uses the dollar for transactions will sense this as a yoke that the US is imposing on them," said Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of foreign-exchange research at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the dollar's "erosion" was intensifying. According to him, the dollar is is becoming less and less attractive as a reserve currency for a number of countries. He noted that it’s not just with BRICS countries that this trend can be seen.