One of the main topics of international news at the beginning of the new year is likely to be Donald Trump’s comeback to the White House. Even before taking up a new term heading the US, he has been causing controversy with a variety of threats: from “resolving” the Ukraine war in 24 hours, to the mass deportation of millions of migrants and seizing the Panama Canal.
One of his main threats is to surcharge products from other countries, in theory, to benefit US production. Punishing countries that stop using the US dollar for commercial transactions with sanctions is another variant of this threat.
“By now, 70% of developing countries around the world have US sanctions. What are they going to do? Sanction 100% of them? That would isolate the United States. I think we have to take some of these threats by Trump with a little less seriousness,” said Prashad.
To Indian historian Vijay Prashad, one of today’s most important Marxist thinkers, although he points out that the new US government must be terrible news for most nations, the billionaire’s threats shouldn’t be taken so seriously.
The Indian thinker was the last guest of BdF Entrevista in 2024. In the conversation, he reviews some of the main issues that were highlighted in the last year in the international news, such as the Venezuelan election and the US, the rise of the far right, the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, as well as climate change and artificial intelligence.
Watch the full interview (in English) and read the main topics below:
I’d like to take you through some of the most important events of 2024 that have made international news, starting with Venezuela. We had the election in Venezuela, whose result was contested by the opposition and by foreign countries, including the US and the European Union. What did you think?
The first thing I’d say is that countries that are in a situation of near war or war, it’s very difficult for them to hold an election. The immense sanctions campaign on Venezuela is effectively a war.
And I think it would be appropriate for the government to have held back on the election, frankly. There are enough experiences around the world to know that, when there is a situation like this, [it’s] very difficult to hold an election. The state apparatus was not working at full capacity, people are suffering and struggling, so many people have migrated out of the country.
The sheer fact that a million of people have migrated out of Venezuela calls into question the ability of the Venezuelans to hold an election. So many of their embassies are understaffed and so on. Nonetheless, Venezuela went ahead with the election. Part of the reason for the election was the Barbados Agreement that the Venezuelan government have made with the opposition, brokered by the United States.
The US is desperate to get Venezuelan oil into Europe. Because of the sanctions on Russia, Europe is struggling to find energy. In fact, during 2022, the United States committed France and Italy to buy petroleum from Venezuela. There was a real hope that if the Barbados Agreement held, then Venezuelan il could enter Europe.
The election was, again, contested. It is always contested. The opposition has contested the election from the beginning of the Chávez era. That was to be expected. But then, the reaction of different countries was a little surprising. If the Europeans are desperate for Venezuelan oil, why would they then contest the election?
Particularly because they keep to trying to violate Venezuela’s sovereignty, [saying] “Where are the papers? Show as the papers!” and so on. There is no obligation in Venezuela for anything to be published. In fact, the opposition candidate has to go to the government agency, the Central Election Council, and ask for a challenge. They never did because the opposition candidate [Edmundo González] ran off to Spain very shortly thereafter.
Obviously, there are countries in the region – Mexico and so on – tried to mediate, but there was no space for them to do anything, and that’s because they also absorbed this strange American idea “Release the facts! Release the papers!”, which is not constitutional. It’s as if I’d go and say in the last Brazilian election there was a fraud. Why? Because the procedures didn’t follow what I wanted it to be. Forget the Brazilian law.
It was curious that this happened. In the end, Maduro will be sworn into a new term in January. That is going to happen, that is a fact accomplished. Nonetheless, the sanctions on Venezuela may tighter under the Trump administration.
How do you assess Brazil’s stance regarding its veto at the BRICS meeting to prevent Venezuela from joining the bloc?
To be honest with you, it’s difficult to understand Brazilian foreign policy sometimes. I understand that the Brazilian Foreign Ministry is pretty independent and has a very long history of its belief in its capability and capacity and so on. I’m told that Mr Lula doesn’t necessarily drive the foreign policy of the country on all issues, that there are various interests at play.
I was a little surprised when Venezuela’s entry into BRICS was blocked by Brazil. It’s obvious that Venezuela is one of the larger potential economies in Latin America. Mexico is certainly not going to join the BRICS because it’s already entangled in free trade agreements in North America, with the US and Canada. So, Venezuela is an obvious candidate for BRICS membership.
It’s puzzling, it’s almost as if Brazilians didn’t want another Latin American country in the BRICS bloc. But, to be honest with you, I don’t get it. What would have been better for Brazil than to have had Venezuela in the BRICS and then other BRICS countries having an influence on Venezuela? I would have been a valuable tool with Venezuela’s potential oil reserves within BRICS. Today, BRICS basically has OPEP+ within it, with the inclusion of Saudi Arabia, Russia, and so on.
The addition of Venezuela would have been an enormous way to consider currencies, new financial systems and so on. Brazil lost an opportunity in its veto of Venezuela to enter the BRICS.
Do you think we should take seriously the idea of abandoning the US dollar and using other currencies in transactions within BRICS countries?
I’m not very much in the belief that de-dollarization is easy. I think it is very difficult. It’s difficult for the following reasons: In order for a currency, a major currency, to become a global currency for reserves to be the currency of transborder trade and so on a country whose currency is used is going to have to give up controlling its capital. In other words, there can be no capital controls.
You have to allow your land to be bought and sold in the international market. In that sense, the United States does a service to the world by allowing its assets to be traded in international markets. The Chinese will never allow thar renminbi or yuan to be openly traded. They will continue to use capital control. They control their financial system very tightly.
At this time, no other currency has the capacity to be like the US dollar. On the other hand, a lot of bilateral trade and multilateral trade is already taking place without using the US dollar. Countries are using either their own currencies or a third currency to trade with each other. There are some problems with this because all trades don’t reconcile easily.
If Brazil has an uneven trade with Bolivia, what does Brazil do with the unused Bolivian peso? What is it going to do, unless it can buy things using the Bolivian currency from, say, Argentina or Chile or somebody else. So, unless you can completely reconcile trading systems… Even bilateral trade has limitations. There are still some countries that only take the US dollar or the euro.
We are not going to see de-dollarization or the emergence of a BRICS currency very quickly. They are moving in the direction of much more local currency trade. But I’m not one to ring the bell and say “de-dollarization is happening now”. It’s a very long process, and I’m not sure what it would look like
What do you think about Trump’s threats against countries considering de-dollarizing their foreign trading?
Trump has made a lot of remarks in the recent period. “Tariffs” is one of his favorite words. He [says] he is going to sanction countries that refuse to use the dollar and other things. I don’t know how many of these threats are real. 100% sanctions on some countries… That is going to hurt the United States, as Claudia Sheinbaum, president of Mexico, wrote in a letter to Trump
To sanction Mexico is crazy because so many American cars are assembled in Mexico and travel across the border from the United States. So, you have all these American cars made in Mexico, crossing the border with 100% sanctions? People in the US won’t be able to afford cars anymore.
There are a lot of empty threats mixed up in statements. The United States already and effectively sanctions most of the countries that are beginning to do trade outside the US dollar. China and Russia, for instance, their bilateral trade is largely outside the dollar. India is trading with Russia in rubles and rupees. India and Iran negotiate in rupees. What is the US going to do? Sanction India? That’s one of the few remaining developing countries that doesn’t have US sanctions. All the things he says, they just cannot take place. Nobody is going to allow it to happen.
Edited by: Dayze Rocha