President Donald Trump added a new pillar to his tariff policy on Saturday, pledging to make it too costly for countries to move away from using the U.S. dollar.
“If you give up the dollar, you will have no trade with the United States because the United States will put a 100 percent tariff on your products,” the Republican presidential candidate said at a rally in the battleground state of Wisconsin.
The statement follows months of discussions between Trump and his economic advisers about how to penalize allies and adversaries that are willing to explore ways to conduct bilateral trade in currencies other than the dollar.
Options include export controls, currency manipulation fees and tariffs, people familiar with the matter previously told Bloomberg News.
Trump, a longtime supporter of protectionist trade policies, said the dollar has been “under great siege” for eight years. China, India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa discussed abandoning the greenback at a summit last year. Trump, by contrast, has said he wants the dollar to remain the world's reserve currency, a pledge he renewed at Saturday's rally.
