As US President Donald Trump wages a trade war across the globe, a new target has come into his line of fire: the BRICS group of emerging major economies.

China warned the Trump administration on Tuesday against reigniting trade tension by restoring tariffs on its goods next month, and threatened to retaliate against nations that strike deals with the United States to cut China out of supply chains.

Announcing the deal with Vietnam last week, Trump said that the US will instead impose a 20 per cent tariff on Vietnamese goods. A higher rate of 40 per cent will apply on any goods from Vietnam it considers to have been ‘trans-shipped’ – i.