The BRICS single currency project, which the Kremlin has been promoting since 2022, promising to end the hegemony of the dollar, is currently not being implemented, said this morning at a press briefing by the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, commenting on Donald Trump's threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on BRICS countries if they reject the dollar in trade, The Moscow Times reports.
The creation of new financial platforms in BRICS "has not been and is not being implemented," Peskov said. He added that experts need to explain the "BRICS agenda" to Trump "in more detail."
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his intention to create an “international reserve currency” based on a basket of BRICS currencies in June 2022, The Moscow Times recalls.
He accused Western authorities of "irresponsible" macroeconomic policies, "including running the printing press, uncontrolled emission and the accumulation of unsecured debts."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed six months later that the bloc's member states would seriously discuss the single currency project. "Serious, self-respecting countries are well aware of what is at stake," he claimed.
At the BRICS summit in Kazan in October 2024, Putin showed off a banknote of the alleged currency, saying it was printed by “one of our people.” However, the Kremlin failed to convince the BRICS countries, Danas reports.
India does not want to allow BRICS to become an "anti-American" organization dominated by Russia and China, Indian officials familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. New Delhi's position, according to the agency's interlocutors, is shared by Brazil and South Africa.
The United Arab Emirates, which joined BRICS after the 2023 summit, “completely rejects” attempts to portray its membership in the bloc as a sign that the global south is in opposition to the West, a Bloomberg source told Bloomberg. The UAE has very good relations with Western countries, including the United States, another official from the country stressed.
A meeting of BRICS finance ministers and central bank chiefs in Moscow, where the Kremlin promoted the creation of an alternative payment system to the dollar, was simply ignored by key member countries. China, India and South Africa sent their deputies and junior officials instead of ministers, Reuters wrote.
Bonus video:
