Welcome back. I'm Ian Masters and this is Background Briefing, available 24-7 at

Background Briefing.org. And joining us now at Serang Sidori, who is director of the Global

South Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His focus areas are geopolitical

risk, grand strategy and climate security with a special emphasis on Asia and the global south. And he has an article

at foreign policy, how bricks can survive America first. Successes are still quite limited,

but the grouping has a potential to shape a new international order. Welcome to background

briefing, Serang Shadori.

Thank you, Ian. Great to be here again.

Well, thanks for joining us, and Trump has threatened an extra 10% tariffs on all nations

siding with Bricks, and Bricks have had their conference meeting over this weekend in Rio,

Brazil. And when we're talking about bricks,

not just talking about the original founding members, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South

Africa, now it includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab

Emirates.

So that's a lot of countries in the world.

I think that's over half of the world's population that Trump is slapping tariffs on and

warning against.

So is he sort of baying into the wind there?

Well, I mean, the tariff policies are so all over the map at this point and so uncertain

that this just injects another level of uncertainty into them.

It's not clear what his social media post meant because he seemed to say that anyone aligning with the anti-American

policies of Bricks. So it's not clear what he means. Does he mean the entire Bricks group?

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