Imposing High Tariffs on India, US Making BRICS a Bigger Economic Bloc: US Economist
He argued that US trade policies, first pushed aggressively during the Trump era, amount to “economic warfare” and risk pushing India closer to Russia and China.
Chennai: By imposing steep tariffs on India, the US is inadvertently strengthening BRICS, which already commands a larger share of global GDP than the G7 and represents nearly half the world’s population, American economist Richard Wolff has said.
Speaking ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin on August 31, Wolff told journalist Rick Sanchez: *“Nothing brings adversaries together more than having a common enemy.”*
He argued that US trade policies, first pushed aggressively during the Trump era, amount to “economic warfare” and risk pushing India closer to Russia and China.
“If you shut off the US to India with big tariffs, India will find other markets. Just as Russia redirected its energy exports, India will shift to BRICS. What you are really doing is building BRICS into a larger, more integrated, and successful alternative to the West,” he said.
Wolff pointed out that BRICS nations now account for 35% of global GDP, compared to the G7’s 28%, and represent almost half the world’s population. In contrast, the US and its Western allies make up just 4.5% of the global population.
“The US is no longer the hegemonic power it once was. It’s behaving like a desperate society — throwing away allies, ignoring history. It’s like watching a mouse shaking its fist at an elephant. At some point, it becomes funny, not scary,” Wolff remarked.
He added that Washington’s “tough guy” posturing is self-defeating: “In the end, the US is shooting itself in the foot.”
