U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 100% import tariffs on products from the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates—if they try to replace the dollar with another currency in international trade transactions.  

In the BBC Brasil article, “Can Brasil become the target of Trump's 'tariff' for being in the BRICS?” McDowell says, “If you think that the only way to keep countries using the dollar is with threats, that would be a bad situation. I don't think it's the situation of the dollar. The U.S. does not need to make threats for the dollar to remain the most popular and important currency in the world."

McDowell adds, “It is possible that he knows that (the risk of a BRICS currency) is not real, but he wants to make a threat now. And in a few months, he will be able to say, ‘Look, the BRICS currency is not going to happen’ (thanks to the threat).”

In the Washington Post article, “Trump threatens tariffs to protect dollar against threat few see as real,” McDowell says China, the world’s second-largest economy, wants to promote its own currency, the yuan, as an eventual rival to the dollar and is unlikely to surrender control to a broader group.