India has “absolutely no interest” in undermining the US dollar, and its fellow members of the Brics grouping of emerging economies have not formed a unified position on a proposed alternative payment system, according to New Delhi’s foreign minister.
Speaking at the London-based think tank Chatham House last week during a six-day visit to Britain and Ireland, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar described the dollar as a “source of international economic stability”.
His comments followed repeated warnings from US President Donald Trump against any efforts by Brics – an acronym of founding nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – to set up a payment system that could undercut the dollar’s dominance.
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Jaishankar said India “has never had a problem” with the dollar’s role and had no plan to replace it as the world’s dominant currency. He also hailed Delhi’s relations with the US, while expressing cautious optimism about its improving ties with Beijing.
China has been pushing the yuan as an alternative to the dollar since the 2008 global financial crisis, signing dozens of currency swap agreements with its trading partners based on their respective currencies.
While use of the yuan in global trade settlements has risen slowly, its presence remains piecemeal compared to the dollar’s dominance. This is despite a mounting urgency in recent years among some of the Brics countries to cut reliance on the US dollar.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has long advocated for the Brics countries to explore alternatives to the US dollar, while Russia – heavily sanctioned since its invasion of Ukraine – has pressed for a payment platform based on the Brics members’ currencies.
At the bloc’s annual summit in October, President Xi Jinping called for the Brics nations to lead an “urgent” reform of the international financial architecture.
The following month, Trump demanded a commitment from the Brics countries “that they will neither create a new Brics currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar”.
Writing on social media, the then president-elect warned that the bloc’s members would “face 100 per cent tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy”.
Trump has since reiterated the threat, including last month when he indicated that “if they want to play games with the dollar” the Brics countries could expect 100 per cent tariffs.
At the Chatham House conference on Wednesday, Jaishankar said India’s relationship with the US was “probably the best that it ever has been, so we have absolutely no interest in undermining the dollar”.
Three weeks ago, after meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House, Trump said he had developed “a special bond” with the country and its leader.
Jaishankar said Trump’s policy “is good for India in many ways”, with its emphasis on affordable energy prices, and technology as a game changer for global politics, offering collaborative possibilities between the two countries.
He also noted the importance of the Quad – the security dialogue composed of the US, India, Australia and Japan – as a foundation for the relationship between Delhi and Washington.
“I think, from President Trump’s perspective, the one big shared enterprise that we have is the Quad, and the Quad is an understanding where everybody pays their fair share. There are no free riders in Quad,” Jaishankar said.
Hours after he was sworn in as secretary of state in the Trump administration, Marco Rubio hosted a meeting in Washington of the Quad’s foreign ministers, followed by bilateral talks.
In the joint statement issued after the meeting, the Quad countries declared their “strong opposition to any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion”, without naming China.
Jaishankar said that relations between China and India had improved since last year, when some progress was made towards addressing their border disputes.
Both sides agreed in December to resume direct flights, as well as the restarting of Indian pilgrimages to China and a revitalisation of cross-border river cooperation. According to Jaishankar, these issues “are being discussed”, but he did not indicate a timeline.
There were “other issues” to be resolved, including the mechanism for dealing with transborder river matters, which was suspended in 2020 when ties were disrupted by the deadly clash in the Himalayan border region between the two countries.
In December, Beijing approved a mega dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, which originates in Tibet and flows into India where it is known as the Brahmaputra. The project has become another sore point in China’s strained relationship with water-stressed India.
“We’re looking at this package. I think people tasked with that mandate are dealing with each other. It’s hard,” Jaishankar said. “Obviously, we would like to see it done, sooner rather than later. And then we will see what happens.”
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
