President Donald Trump thinks Spain, a highly developed market economy in Southern Europe, is an emerging BRICS country. In early January, Trump had called on NATO countries to more than double their military spending targets. On Monday, a reporter asked him about that demand after his swearing-in ceremony, citing Spain. Trump replied, “Spain is very low. Are they a BRICS nation?”
The reporter asked, “What?”
And Trump said, “They’re a BRICS nation, Spain. You know what a BRICS nation is? You’ll figure it out.”
In fact, the “S” stands for South Africa, not Spain.
The president continued: “But uh, and if the BRICS nations want to do that, that’s OK, but we’re gonna put at least a 100 percent tariff on the business they do with the United States,” Trump continued.
The BRICs countries used to be Brazil, Russia, India and China, which were grouped together because they were considered rising economic powers. Now, BRICS is a formal international organization that also includes South Africa, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Read more at The New Republic.