In late May 2024, a jury in New York found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 charges in a criminal case. These charges were about him falsifying business records to hide payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign.
One of Trump’s big goals for his second term has been to weaken and break apart BRICS — a group of countries including Russia, China, and several others, formed to challenge the dominance of Western powers in global politics. The group started in 2009 with encouragement from Russian President Vladimir Putin. But according to Washington Post columnist Max Boot, Trump’s attempts to harm BRICS have actually done the opposite, making the group seem more important and pushing countries closer together.
Trump has claimed BRICS was “dead” only weeks into his second term, but his aggressive trade policies have targeted any country working with the group. For example, he announced that any nation siding with BRICS would face an extra 10% tariff on their goods, and in late 2024 he even threatened a 100% tariff on BRICS countries if they created a new currency to compete with the U.S. dollar. Instead of scaring countries away from BRICS, these threats have alienated possible U.S. allies and pushed them toward Russia and China.
Boot compared this to the opposite of Julius Caesar’s “divide and conquer” strategy — instead of breaking enemies apart, Trump is unintentionally helping unite them. Brazil, for example, faced a 50% tariff from Trump after the prosecution of its former president Jair Bolsonaro for an attempted coup. This pushed Brazil to strengthen its ties with China and Russia. The same thing happened with India, which also faced a 50% tariff. India has since kept buying Russian oil and paused its plans to buy weapons from the United States.
