US President Donald Trump on Thursday claimed that the BRICS nations have “broken up”, days after he threatened them with 100 per cent tariffs if they tried to seek an alternative for the US dollar.

“BRICS states were trying to destroy our dollar. They wanted to create a new currency. So when I came in, the first thing I said was any BRICS state that even mentions the destruction of the dollar will be charged a 150% tariff, and we don’t want your goods and the BRICS states just broke up,” the US President said.

Calling it an amazing turnaround, Mr Trump said, “I don’t know what the hell happened to them. We haven’t heard from the BRICS states lately.”

BRICS, formed in 2009, is an intergovernmental organisation made up of 10 countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. This is the only major international group of which the US is not a part. Over the years, the nations have been trying to find an alternative to the US dollar or create their own BRICS currency. If done so, it seems as a way to reduce their reliance on the US dollar as a prominent medium of exchange.

Even before Mr Trump took office, he had threatened to impose tariffs on BRICS nations if they try to introduce alternative currency to the US dollar. Last week, Mr Trump threatened 100 per cent tariff on the BRICS nations and slammed them saying the bloc was created for a “bad purpose”.

“BRICS was put there for a bad purpose and most of those people don’t want it. They don’t even want to talk about it now. They are afraid to talk about it because I told them if they want to play games with the dollar, then they’re going to be hit with a 100 per cent tariff,” he said.

The US President also claimed that BRICS is “dead”.