Why does Trump threaten the BRICS countries?

Afrasianet - In a moment that reflects the fracture of entrenched geopolitical balances, BRICS leaders lined  up in front of Rio de Janeiro's Sugar Love Mountain, showing signs of confidence and defiance, during a summit hosted by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

In a scene that appeared to be an implicit announcement of the launch of the "alternative world order", the group raised its voice loudly in the face of the policies of the West, especially the administration of US President Donald Trump, adopting positions that observers described as "escalatory and against American hegemony."

Strategic Expansion

The group, which was founded in 2009 as an economic alliance that includes Brazil , Russia , India , China and South Africa, has undergone a paradigm shift this year after expanding to include five additional countries, making it now 49% of the world's population, equivalent to about 3.9 billion people, in addition to 39% of  global GDP,  according to Bloomberg statistics.

This expansion raised the ambitions of the bloc and made observers see it as a direct threat to the Group of Seven (G7), which has long monopolized global economic decision-making, and the Group of Twenty,  which sought broader representation without changing the actual equation of Western hegemony. 

Direct political escalation against Trump

During the two-day summit in Rio de Janeiro, the group issued an official statement expressing "grave concern" over  rising global tariffs and attacking what it called "excessive military spending" by Western countries. The summit also condemned the airstrikes targeting Iran, a member of the BRICS, in a move seen as a direct response to the Trump administration.

The US response was not delayed, as President Trump came out through his own platform "Truth Social" to threaten to impose additional tariffs of 10% on "every country that identifies with the anti-American policies of BRICS," as he put it. 

Growing power despite contradictions

Although the bloc includes countries with significant economic and geopolitical weight, its interior is not free from structural differences. Relations between India and China, for example, remain marred by border tensions and regional competition, while Chinese President Xi Jinping did not attend the  summit, a sign that observers interpreted as reservation or undeclared tension.

Saudi Arabia's accession has also not been definitively decided, amid reports of its reluctance to fully commit to membership that could put it on a collision course with Washington.

Despite these discrepancies, Bloomberg notes that the BRICS continues to "attract queues of countries willing to join," amid rising global tensions and Western markets closed to some developing economies.

Global economic influence that is hard to ignore

Economically, BRICS today constitutes:

•    49% of the world's population
•    39% of global GDP
•    25% of world trade
•    It retains vast energy and raw material resources, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, along with Iran, the largest oil and gas producers.
•    China and India, two major members, have huge technological and productive industries and are among the fastest growing economies in the world.

However, Western circles are criticizing what they describe as "the inability of BRICS to turn its numerical weight into actual influence," as the group has not yet been able to create strong alternative financial institutions equivalent  to the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, despite establishing the "New Development Bank" in 2015.

 
Transformations of the global trading system

The dynamics come at a critical time, as U.S. trading partners race to strike deals ahead of Trump's Wednesday deadline, amid threats to tax up to 30 percent on imports from countries such as South Africa, which currently exports more than 70 percent of its citrus crop to the U.S. market during the southern hemisphere winter season.

For his part, US Treasury Secretary Scott Biscent hinted at the possibility of extending the deadline by three weeks for some countries, stressing that "the messages that the Trump administration will send this week, are not the last word in tariff policies."

Is BRICS becoming a global hub?

Although it did not issue explicit statements against Washington, the political messages emanating from the summit were clear: there is political will to undermine American unilateralism and build a more representative system for the South. One summit participant commented: "The goal is not to replace American hegemony with another, but to end the political and economic monopoly of a small group of countries."

Leaders in Washington seem  to recognize the magnitude of the challenge, as BRICS, with all its contradictions, is a geopolitical reality that is hard to overlook or underestimate.

The world is changing

With the trade war widening, geopolitical conflicts escalating, and nationalist rhetoric in the West, the BRICS now finds itself with a historic opportunity to forge a "post-Western."

But the question arises urgently: Can this group, internally contradictory and institutionally limited, actually establish a new world order?.

How does Trump negotiate with the world?

In September 2017, US President Donald Trump stood  before the United Nations General Assembly addressing the world in angry language that the international stage has not been familiar with since the end of  the Cold War, making an explicit threat to North Korea, saying that the United States would "completely destroy North Korea if it continues its nuclear threats," and speaking of the North Korean leader in a sarcastic tone, calling him the "Missile Man."

At the time, this did not appear to be just a diplomatic escalation, but rather a declaration of very hostile intentions, and a historic escalation was on the horizon. Surprisingly, Trump himself returned a few months later to shake hands  with Kim Jong-un at the first summit of its kind between two leaders from the two countries, declaring that they had "fallen in love" after exchanging diplomatic messages, and praising him. 

From his earliest moments on the political stage, Donald Trump has  been careful not to look like any previous U.S. president. He did not hide his angry temperament, but embraced it proudly, saying in  the 2016 Republican Party debate: "I will gladly accept the mantle of the angry ."

When asked during his 2024 campaign how he would respond to a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, he said, "I won't have to do anything, because [Xi Jinping] respects me and knows I'm completely crazy."

But what distinguished Trump was not only the anger, but his desire to be seen as a different, exceptional, unpredictable, and bargain leader, but went further in one of his first campaign speeches in 2016, when he said, "Our nation must be more opaque and less predictable."

Now that the world has tested Trump's policies for a short time, it can be said that this combination of ambiguity and what a number of American newspapers call "madness", in addition to the chaos of statements, which has become a negotiating approach, and a special way to make deals, in what seems to be not only populist chaos, but in fact a high-risk negotiating tool of a special kind. What are the features of this "Trumpian approach"? What are the chances of sustaining its success? 

Irrational Engineering

Donald Trump's negotiating behavior is not easy to classify into traditional diplomacy: he does not speak the language of institutions, does not adhere to the systematic sequence preferred by policymakers, and does not use traditional channels to announce official statements.

But despite the seeming randomness and volatility, the observer quickly notices a clear repetition of Trump's way of managing international files, referring to something like an integrated negotiating model, based on shock, escalation, and trade-off.

Trump does not start from the middle of the road, but throws himself directly to the extreme, launching a radical demand – such as permanently severing trade relations with a party, or forcibly annexing a land to his country – and then calling for negotiations from a superior position, accompanied by veiled or explicit threats, which in an instant turn into personal messages of praise, or promises of great agreements, and then, if necessary, he returns and executes a partial threat to confirm his seriousness.

This model was clearly demonstrated in dealing with NATO. Trump has opened fire on Washington's European allies, accusing them of failing to shoulder the burden of collective defense and threatening to withdraw the United States from the alliance if they do not double their military spending.
His performance appeared "aggressive" and "chaotic," but ironically, this pressure later resulted in a collective announcement to raise the defense budgets of a number of NATO countries to 5% of GDP, a feat that previous administrations did not achieve despite calm and diplomatic discipline. Trump then returned to speaking in the language of partnership, praising the alliance and affirming his country's commitment to Article V. He seemed to put the Allies on the brink of collapse, then brought them back from the edge to pick the fruit.

Again with Iran, but with different results so far, although the operation still carries with it the factors of its explosion again, Trump demanded that Iran abandon its nuclear weapons program, threatening dire consequences if it does not. He then entered into indirect negotiations with Iran, publicly declaring that the negotiations were proceeding promisingly, and that he wanted Iran to be a great country. At one point, he set a date for the negotiations to end, and when the deadline passed without an agreement, he took dramatic military action.

In both cases, he was seeking not to create a stable negotiating environment, but rather a confused environment that would give him the upper hand, willing to dismantle the old rules and then rebuild them through direct deals. In Ukraine, for example, Trump hinted at the beginning of his second term at the possibility of reconsidering US support for Kiev, which was considered a geopolitical shock in Western capitals, before returning and praising the ability of allies to respond and coordinate.

What was also notable was his escalation with Canada, whose former prime minister Justin Trudeau named him the 51st governor of the state, which Trump has stated he will annex to the United States. The escalation was a factor in the rise of new Prime Minister Mark Carney , who was elected in late April on the back of his pledge to counter US President Donald Trump's  threats of a trade war and Canada's annexation to the United States.

After his victory, he vowed to launch "the biggest transformation of the Canadian economy since the end of World War II" to build a "strong" nation, at a time when the world's ninth-largest economy is facing an unprecedented crisis.

Later, Trump received Carney at the White House, and what initially appeared to be a threat to Canada's sovereignty turned into a quest to turn a new page of tension. 

Where did this model come from?

To understand how Trump built this negotiating model, it is not enough to follow his statements and political decisions, but to return to the environment in which his mind was formed. The man did not come from a bureaucratic background, served in the national security services, and did not train in the corridors of the State Department or at the tables of congressional committees. Trump came from the realm of real estate, media, entertainment, deals, and a culture of parasitic businessmen who see every relationship as an opportunity for a barter and every adversary amenable to confusion or taming.

In his famous 1987 book The Art of the Deal, Trump outlines his philosophy in very simple and clear terms: "I set very high goals, and then I keep pushing and pushing and pushing until I get what I want." Elsewhere in the book, he points to the importance of using ambiguity, procrastination, and media hype as negotiating tools in their own right: "I always try to let my opponent think, 'Hey, maybe this man can actually do what he threatens.'"

But before Trump wrote this book, a figure symbolized as being highly influential in building Trump's cognitive and behavioral mix and shaping his worldview is Roy Cohn, a controversial lawyer known for his ferocity and ability to turn any crisis into a counterattack. In his youth, Cohen was an aide to the famous Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, during the violent political purges of the fifties, and later became Trump's political and legal mentor in his early days. 

According to a report by the newspaper "Politico" published in 2017, Cohen began, since 1973, to represent the Trump family, after the Department of Justice sued them for racist rental practices in thousands of apartments they own, and by the eighties of the last century, Cohen was the main mastermind of Trump's maneuvers that launched his career, as Cohen became for Trump much more than just his lawyer.

At a crucial moment for Trump, there has never been a more influential figure than Cohn. According to the aforementioned report, Cohen instilled in him three basic rules:

•    Never apologize.
•    Never back down.
•    These rules have turned in Trump's mind into a solid negotiating compass. When journalists criticize him, he calls them enemies. When allies slow down, he threatens to withdraw. When he challenges his opponents, he begins to destroy the rules of the game before asking for them to be rearranged.

Hence, we understand why Trump prefers direct negotiations on diplomatic channels, and why he tends to turn international files into personal offers, as the man does not trust institutions, but trusts his own presence and ability to move the equation through confrontation and his personal nature.

Even in his overt appearance and behavior, Trump invests in "thoughtful irrationality." Daniel Dresner, a professor at Tufts University, says Trump "is rarely a three-dimensional chess player, but often the man who eats the pieces." This perception, however ironic, captures the essence of what Trump is doing in the world order now: to completely dismantle the rules of the game and rebuild them, even if it leads to a completely different game.

Unpredictable results

Despite Trump's consistent negotiating pattern, his results were starkly mixed from file to file. While he has made tactical progress on some issues, his strategy has hit hard walls on others, either because his opponents understood early on the philosophy he is moving by, or because his partners have eroded their confidence in his ability to commit.

On the global trade file, Trump has chosen to start with an all-out war and very loud statements. He imposed high tariffs on allies and adversaries alike, from Canada to  the European Union to China, and then called for bilateral negotiations instead of the multilateral trading system, as part of his strategy to "rebalance trade" in America's favor. Indeed, he has succeeded in amending some agreements (such as the  USMCA with Canada and Mexico), but they are mostly cosmetic adjustments.

As for China, the trade war has turned into a marathon of mutual economic bleeding, ending only with a fragile truce that did not address the essence of structural differences, and harsh pressures continue between the two sides, suffering from Washington as well as Beijing. Thus, this strategy produced a state of sustained tension without a real strategic settlement.

In European politics, Trump's pressure on NATO has already resulted in additional financial commitments, but the diplomatic cost has been high, as the repeated threat of withdrawal has made many allies deal with the US administration with a degree of strategic caution, Berlin and Paris have begun to seriously explore, for the first time, the possibility of building a European security architecture independent of Washington, and discussions have recently been raised between Berlin and London about a bilateral defense agreement. In this sense, Trump has made concessions, but for decades he has shaken what has been the "psychological pillar" of an alliance West.

On Iran, Trump has sought to impose a "new nuclear deal" on U.S. terms, backed by bombing of nuclear facilities inside Iran after negotiations failed. Despite this pressure, Tehran has not collapsed, but has stepped up its steps toward abandoning its nuclear commitments and withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has not yet returned to the diplomatic fold since Netanyahu fired the first bullet on June 13.

Therein lies the paradox of Trump's strategy; he sometimes succeeds because he seems unreliable, and sometimes fails for the same reason. What gives him the ability to threaten robs him of the ability to reassure the other side that there is a serious path to agreement.

Thus, Trump's model is not in vain, but it is also not a magic formula. In files that need shock or quick negotiation that may produce immediate profits, but in complex files that rely on cumulative trust – such as containing China's rise, ending the war in Ukraine, and modifying the trade system – it seems as if it is being destroyed and then unable to rebuild.

The "crazy man" theory: from Nixon to Trump

Not far from Trump's model, the "madman theory" is one of the most controversial negotiating techniques in the history of U.S. foreign policy.

The theory is based on the seemingly simple principle, complex in its application, that if you convince your opponent that you are "irrational" enough to make destructive decisions, he is driven by fear and will accept to back down or compromise to avoid the worst, as people usually rush to avoid losses more than they reap interests. Here it is not only force that is a deterrent, but the suggestion that it is not disciplined, and that it contains a mixture of madness, mystery and emotion.

The theory is attributed to US President Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, when he told his chief of staff, Harry Robbins Haldeman, that he wanted the North Vietnamese to think he was "really crazy" and willing to use nuclear weapons if necessary.

"You have to convince them that I don't control myself when I get angry, and that at any moment I can push the button, they'll be scared and they'll acquiesce to us," Nixon told him, according to Haldeman's memoirs. Although Nixon later denied that he said it verbatim, Haldeman's account has remained fresh in American political memory as the origin of this mysterious doctrine. 

But the idea is much older than Nixon himself. In his book Debates about Levy, Nicolas Machiavelli wrote, "Sometimes it's wise to pretend to be crazy."
This idea was later embraced by strategic thinkers, such as Thomas Schilling and Daniel Ellsberg, during  the Cold War years, when they argued that a certain irrationality or uncertainty in the behavior of leaders could make an adversary more wary of escalation. But most of these theorists never recommended their crude use, seeing them as a temporary possibility within the deterrence games.

With the glamour surrounding this theory, its historical performance has not been impressive. Nixon himself, who sought to implement it with Vietnam andthe Soviet Union, did not reap tangible results; Hanoi did not concede, nor did Moscow get confused. The reason, as a number of researchers have concluded, is that leaders on the other side knew full well that "intentional madness" was merely a tactic, and that Washington, despite its threats, was subject to a complex bureaucratic system and to public opinion that was difficult to ignore. So Nixon's threats, though loud, seemed to be. Toothless.

But that changed with Donald Trump. The man didn't play the role of a madman, he was seen as really that. Daniel Dresner, in Foreign Affairs, explains that what was Nixon's "intentional representation" has become an inherent trait of his political personality, and many world leaders, from South Korea to Canada, treat Trump as an "unexpected act," not because he wants to, but because he really is.

In contrast, researcher Rosanne McManus, in her research at Penn State University, suggests that the "madman theory" may only work in rare cases, when the leader is irrational about a specific issue, not generally crazy. If an adversary believes that the other side is fiercely interested in one issue, they may believe their threat. If crazy behavior appears to be part of the public figure, the threat loses credibility, because the other party will not know when this madness will stop, nor when stability will be achieved.

The "mad man" theory, in order to succeed, requires that there be a parallel and rewarding reassurance to the threat, that is, the leader must convince his adversary that if he responds, he will get stability or lasting peace that deserves to be compromised.

But those who cannot control the "madman" policy are not reassuring, nor can they build this trust with those around them. So, as Dresner noted, most of Trump's attempts to extract final compromises failed, because he was not seen as someone to be trusted even after an agreement was reached.

In any case, nothing in the world of politics scares more than a man who has the reins of power and is adept at threatening to unleash its intransigence without deterrence or control. This is how Donald Trump looked on the international stage, a man who negotiates as if the world were a gambling table, ascends and retreats, threatens and then compromises, testing the boundaries between him and his opponents not to respect them, but to redraw them according to what he wants. Whatever the outcome of this approach, more agreements or more wars, it will remain.