American economist Richard Wolff said that the United States is shooting itself in the foot by pretending to “act tough” against India by imposing 50% penalty tariffs against on its exports to the country.
Wolff was hosted by Russia Today TV host and journalist Rick Sanchez in his programme on Tuesday and both pointed out that Washington’s announcement marked a turning point and with Sanchez adding “the world just changed”.
“What the United States is doing is unjust, irresponsible and wrong. We will not be told whom we can or cannot buy from,” the speaker said. “And in that moment, Professor, I thought to myself—the world just changed. Something happened there that historians will one day write about, because the world shifted,” Sanchez told Wolff.
The reciprocal tariffs of 25% on India came into effect on August 7 following an announcement by US President Donald Trump, when tariffs on about 70 other nations also kicked in. On the same day, Trump announced doubling the tariffs on Indian goods to 50 per cent for India’s purchases of Russian crude oil. The additional tariffs came into effect on Wednesday.
Trump tried to bully India into ditching Russia — India is not budging, and why should they? Why should the U.S. dictate who you can buy oil from?
Watch the legendary economist Richard Wolff eviscerate the U.S. economic policy. pic.twitter.com/e1FPoMc4g2
— Rick Sanchez (@RickSanchezTV) August 27, 2025
Wolff, a renowned American Marxian economist and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, agreed with Sanchez and expanded on why the moment was historic.
The economist, however, first chose to connect Trump and his officials’ attitude to US Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, who drew a backlash after urging journalists during a news conference in Beirut to “act civilized” rather than “animalistic”.
Wolff then went to talk about how Trump’s steps only go on to strengthen India’s hand and empower BRICS group of nations.
“Let me tell you how you’re right. What you just showed us, via Ambassador Barak, was the United States talking to a small Middle Eastern country. But that is not India. India is now, according to the United Nations, the largest country on Earth, having overtaken China. If you do what the United States—what Mr. Trump—is doing with these threats against a nation that has maintained a long historical relationship with Russia since the days of the Soviet Union, you are playing with a very different adversary,” Wolff said.
He warned that shutting of Indian export to US via tariffs will only push India to find other markets and strengthen BRICS.
BRICS, a bloc of emerging economies led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (now expanded to include oil-rich Gulf states and others), positions itself as a counterweight to Western financial dominance by promoting trade in local currencies and exploring alternatives to the US dollar in global commerce.
BRICS has faced the ire of Trump on several occasions. Trump dismissed BRICS as a “little group” that is “fading out fast,” while reiterating his threat to levy a 10% tariff to protect US dollar dominance in July and in February bluntly declared “BRICS is dead,” and threatening a 100% tariff if the bloc pursues creating a common currency, saying: “They can go find another sucker Nation.”
“If you shut off India from the United States with big tariffs, India will simply find other markets for its exports. Just as Russia found new buyers for its energy, India will sell not to the US but to the rest of the BRICS. And what you are doing, in hothouse fashion, is helping BRICS grow into an ever larger, more integrated, and successful economic alternative to the West,” Wolff told Sanchez.
BRICS has emerged as a counterweight to the West by pooling together some of the world’s largest emerging economies, coordinating trade and investment in local currencies, building parallel financial institutions like the New Development Bank, and pushing back against US-led sanctions and dollar dominance.
“We are watching, as you put it, a historic moment—but one not without irony. It will be the spectacle of the United States acting like the world’s tough guy, while only shooting itself in the foot,” Wolff said, in a clip shared by the Russian news outlet, which is now going viral.
Wolff warned that by pushing India away, Washington may be accelerating the growth of BRICS into a more integrated and successful counterweight to the West.
