US President Donald Trump announced late Sunday night (local time) via Truth Social that his first information letters on the «retaliatory», punitive tariffs he means to impose on other countries will begin to be delivered to their governments from 12:00 today (East Coast time - 19:00 GMT).
Immediately afterwards, he threatened that those countries aligned with «the anti-American policies» of the BRICS alliance would be subjected to an «additional 10% tariff», capitalizing the word «additional», as is his habit for emphasis.
«There will be no exceptions to this policy,» he added.
He did not clarify what he meant by «anti-American policies».
This alliance, which originally included Brazil, Russia, India and China when it was established in 2009, then added South Africa and last year Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia.
Earlier yesterday, this alliance of developing countries, which held a summit in Brazil, expressed its «serious concern» about the imposition of «unilateral» tariffs by the US, without naming them, stressing that measures of this nature «hurt the prospects for global economic growth».
