NEW YORK, July 8. /TASS/. The BRICS member countries will expand trade cooperation despite US President Donald Trump's threats to impose 10% tariffs on any country that supports the "anti-American policy" of the association, The New York Times reported.
According to the publication’s estimate, the White House's aggressive trade policy has had the opposite effect: the world's largest economies prefer to trade with each other in order to be less dependent on the United States.
"The effort to increase trade within the BRICS group highlights how Mr. Trump’s tariffs are redrawing global economic relations and pushing America’s trading partners to other markets," the newspaper says.
In addition, the BRICS members reserve the right to impose retaliatory tariffs in the event of an escalation of the trade war by Washington, the NYT notes.
Earlier, in a joint communique following the summit in Rio de Janeiro, the BRICS countries spoke out against unilateral trade and financial measures, including raising tariffs and creating non-tariff barriers that "lead to the emergence of a trade imbalance and contradict WTO [World Trade Organization] norms."