New Delhi: US President Donald Trump’s repeated attempts at dismantling a Global South initiative, targeting its constituents ‘brick-by-brick’ with punitive tariffs and name-calling, may have rather helped the nations come closer.
Foreign Ministers of BRICS nations, on September 27, made clear their intention of standing united against “coercion that threatens to further reduce global trade, disrupt global supply chains, or introduce uncertainty into international economic and trade activities…”
White House eyes BRICS nations as a challenge to US hegemony. The group today represents close to half the global population and around 40 per cent of the global GDP, with about 26 per cent of global trade. Its first meeting took place at the Foreign Ministers’ level in 2006, much like Saturday’s gathering, at the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Three years later, the heads of member states met at their first Summit in 2009 at Ekaterinburg, Russia.
The acronym BRIC was first used in 2001 by Goldman Sachs in their Global Economics Paper, “The World Needs Better Economic BRICs”. This was on the basis of econometric analyses projecting that the four economies would individually and collectively occupy far greater economic space and would be among the world’s largest economies in the next 50 years or so.
BRIC expanded into BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa at the then-member Foreign Ministers’ meeting in New York in 2010. It further grew in 2024 with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE becoming full members from January 1, 2024. Indonesia joined the BRICS as a full member in 2025, while Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan were inducted as partner countries.
In recent times, President Trump has warned the bloc against planning a “de-dollarisation move”.
An article published by the policy institute Chatham House observed last month, “Washington is using Brazil to send a warning to other countries – particularly other BRICS countries like South Africa and India – on issues such as controlling digital communications, using alternative currencies to the US dollar in trade transactions, and relations with China.”
A J. P. Morgan study in July found de-dollarisation “most visible in commodity markets, where the greenback’s influence on pricing has diminished.”
Due to Western sanctions, Russian oil products exported eastward and southward are being sold in the local currencies of buyers, or in the currencies of countries Russia perceives as friendly, it cited as an example.
“Among buyers, India, China and Turkey are all either using or seeking alternatives to the dollar,” the report added. “However, though the US dollar continues to cede ground to nontraditional currencies in global foreign exchange reserves, it remains the preeminent reserve currency,” observed three eminent economists associated with the IMF.
Various reports quote that the US dollar is still used in nearly 90 per cent of global transactions and about 59 per cent of foreign exchange reserves. Several economists thus argue that de-dollarisation is still a threat that remains distant.
Washington may also not take kindly to the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Saturday meeting reiterating their “strong support” to Ethiopia and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s bid for accession to the WTO. Neither would it like them condemning “the military strikes against the Islamic Republic of Iran since 13 June 2025.”
As the Chatham House article stated, “Although a loose alliance, the BRICS grouping has gained momentum in recent years. Members such as Brazil, India and South Africa are pushing for a series of reforms to the commercial, financial and multilateral systems without breaking with the current system.”
(IANS)
