What does Washington’s dominant “America First” mood mean for BRICS?
As its leaders gather in Rio de Janeiro this weekend, the omens are not propitious. U.S. President Donald Trump has taken direct aim at the 10-nation grouping, threatening to impose a 100 percent tariff on its member states should they try to dethrone the U.S. dollar from its globally dominant role. Washington has also stepped up a trade and tariff war across the world, including against almost all BRICS states. And a BRICS member state, Iran, recently came under a ferocious military assault from the United States. Can BRICS survive this onslaught, and what must it do to stay relevant in a new world?
BRICS is not a formal international organization but rather a loose coalition of what I have called the “global east” (Russia and China) and a set of global south states. Following its first leaders’ summit in 2009 as BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China), it quickly added South Africa to become BRICS. Post-2023, five new members have been added (Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates), and a lower tier of partner countries has been announced. BRICS has undoubtedly emerged as a major growth story. By combining high ambition with flexibility and efficacy, BRICS could yet emerge as a major shaper of the international order.
From left to right: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pose for a family photo during the 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg on Aug. 23, 2023.Gianluigi Guercia/AFP via Getty Images
The global south’s BRICS play is not a return to the hoary sentiment of so-called Third World solidarity of the 1970s. Global south states have instead joined BRICS to pursue a limited and common set of interests with Russia and China. These interests arise from two realities of our changing world.
First, the global order under U.S. leadership is failing on multiple fronts to solve global problems—recently compounded by Washington’s sweeping tariff assault. Second, declining unipolarity and a highly volatile foreign policy have made the United States an unreliable partner, sharply raising global uncertainty. When uncertainty is high, the rational impulse is to spread risk and invest in alternative structures.
Has BRICS made a difference to the global order? The very existence of a transregional club that does not include any state from the global north is a bold experiment that should not be dismissed. It could be a hook for all sorts of initiatives to conceivably emerge down the road. Also, the group’s collective assertions (in its annual summit declarations) on key questions of economic governance and geopolitics are important in reinforcing or challenging global norms.
But when it comes to material impacts on the ground, successes are still quite limited. The greatest achievements are in development finance, where the Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB) has made a modest splash. Though the NDB’s lending of about $4 billion annually is much less than the World Bank’s, the BRICS bank has been functioning for a decade, retaining a high international credit rating. The NDB also incorporates innovative governance practices different from the World Bank, such as the lack of a single controlling shareholder, a presidency that rotates between the five initial BRICS members, and the adoption of country standards on labor and the environment in its projects.
As BRICS leaders meet in Rio, Brazil has prioritized south-south cooperation, global health, climate action, and multilateralism. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend, however. This gives the global south component of BRICS an opportunity to steer the summit.
Logically speaking, “America First” only strengthens the rationale for BRICS. The rank unilateralism and casual abandonment of international law when it comes to regions such as the Middle East and arenas such as global trade call for a stabilizing countercurrent that can strengthen norms of cooperation. Global south states, as weaker actors, rely even more on international cooperation in their attempts to achieve security and prosperity for their people.
But the rebellious mood in Washington suggests BRICS must tread carefully if it is to avoid being undermined in the coming years. This calls for a three-pronged strategy of reassurance, retrenchment, and reinforcement.
A mural reads “Down With the U.S.A.” in central Tehran on March 31.Alireza/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
First, BRICS must reassure Washington and the American people that it is not an anti-American or anti-Western club and has no desire to overthrow the dollar. This has been made clear by some individual member states such as India and, more recently, Brazil. But sanctions-hit Russia pushed hard to create alternative currency mechanisms during its 2024 presidency. These efforts should be abandoned for now. Ending the dollar’s reign is, in any case, a pipe dream considering the currency’s major strengths in the financial order.
BRICS could also impress on Washington that even as it turns more inward, burdens still need to be shared to solve global problems, the relentless march of which know nothing of election outcomes in the United States. BRICS can play a constructive role in this regard by helping to deliver a more stable world with lower chances of mass migration, terrorism, and organized crime. All of this is eminently in the U.S. national interest.
Second, BRICS needs to retrench from its kitchen-sink agenda. Of late, its initiatives and assertions have expanded to encompass too many areas. A still-fledgling grouping with no formal secretariat or permanent staff must make some hard choices if it wants to be more effective.
The trickiest areas for BRICS are geopolitics and hard security. These spaces can magnify internal differences within the grouping—unsurprising, as BRICS was originally designed for economic, not security, governance.
BRICS could most easily achieve consensus on the Russia-Ukraine war. It also took an impressively strong stand on violations in the Israel-Hamas war and most recently (with Brazil as chair) on the attacks on Iran. Yet even as major violations of international law are essential to call out, BRICS will need to carefully pick its battles on future crises and wars.
Retrenchment, if done right, can more easily open the door for the third prong of the strategy—reinforcement. BRICS remains highly relevant for a more balanced and stable global order. This implies down on issue areas where BRICS has comparative advantages and can make the most impact.
Construction workers install the logo of the New Development Bank on a building in Shanghai on Dec. 20, 2020.Costfoto/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Development finance tops the list. This essentially means a laser-like focus on strengthening the NDB. The BRICS bank’s focus on infrastructure and sustainability is right on target. However, its membership (open to all U.N. states) can be expanded faster. As a point of comparison, the Chinese-dominated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has more than 100 members. The NDB, founded before the AIIB, has only nine. Expansion of the NDB’s membership should be accompanied by a steady increase in lending levels and faster execution of projects on the ground.
BRICS also has opportunities to expand in two crucial areas the United States has vacated: climate action and global health. In climate change, the global north tends to focus mostly on mitigation. BRICS could focus exclusively on adaptation and resilience, where gaps in financing and knowledge sharing are truly massive and the needs of the global south are most urgent.
China contributes substantially to climate finance but is still classified as a developing country in climate negotiations. Global south members of BRICS could persuade Beijing to take on formal obligations on climate change. With its meteoric rise, China can no longer be considered the global south, and its responsibilities should evolve accordingly.
With Washington quitting the World Health Organization and turning hostile to vaccines, BRICS is uniquely positioned to grow its existing initiatives in this space. China and India are already among the world’s vaccine great powers. Converting BRICS’ existing vaccine research and development center into a robust and functioning institution with a brick-and-mortar presence (as was done for the NDB) could be a major contribution.
Finally, BRICS states are unanimous on defending the global trading order. Even as its foreign ministers failed to issue a joint statement in April, the chair’s statement from Brazil emphasized the grouping’s clear consensus on trade. This message should be reiterated at every opportunity. As a concrete step, BRICS members not yet a part of the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (a voluntary body formed to ease the U.S.-engineered logjam in the dispute resolution mechanism of the World Trade Organization) should aim to join it as soon as possible. They should also continue to move forward with trade integration and facilitation mechanisms among themselves and in their own regions.