Global leaders hit back Monday at a series of threats issued by President Donald Trump in posts on Truth Social, the social media network Trump owns.
Trump posted 13 letters written to countries ranging from Thailand to Serbia and Tunisia threatening each of them with additional tariffs unless they corrected "many years" of trade imbalances with the United States. Those threats coincided with new U.S. tariffs that went into effect against trade partners like Japan and South Korea on Monday.
BRICS nations like Russia, India, and Brazil responded to the threats in a joint statement on Monday, The Financial Times reported.
“The world has changed. We don’t want an emperor. We are sovereign countries,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told the outlet at a news conference. He also called on global trading partners to create a system that is not dependent on the U.S. dollar.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whom Trump sparred with at the White House, added that Trump's threats are "disappointing."
“It is really disappointing that, when there is such a very positive collective manifestation, such as Brics, there should be others who see it in a negative light and want to punish those who participate,” according to the report.
The threats also appeared to allow the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to be a moral voice within the BRICS alliance, even as Russia continues its war in Ukraine. Lavrov accused the United States of "flagrantly abusing" its position in the global economy, the Financial Times reported.
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