For Brics, it's a big leap from talk shop to institution of power
Rio de Janeiro summit , it projected something more potent than aspiration. The message was loud and clear: the era of unipolar global dominance is drawing to an end.
Brics leaders spoke with growing confidence, condemning 'coercive' economic tactics, effectively calling for
de-dollarisation and rejecting US unilateralism.
Following this display of unity, US President Donald Trump
threatened an additional 10 per cent tariff on any country 'aligning themselves with the anti-American policies of Brics'. Since then, he has
slapped a 50 per cent tariff on Brazil, in part for the trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro, accused of plotting a coup – which Trump calls a 'witch hunt'.
Once little more than a diplomatic acronym, Brics is rapidly evolving into a geopolitical symbol. Yet its internal contradictions – India's careful
balancing act , Brazil's pragmatic diplomacy, South Africa's domestic crises – continue to undermine its coherence. The bloc stands at a crossroads: can it become a true alternative to the
G7 , or is it merely a fractured mirror of diverging interests?
Brics is neither a formal military alliance like Nato nor a structured economic entity like the European Union. Rather, it is a loose strategic partnership – a forum of major emerging economies that collaborate on shared concerns, particularly global governance, development and financial reform.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
AllAfrica
an hour ago
- AllAfrica
Fifty days to hold the line in Ukraine
This week, US President Donald Trump announced a new aid package for Ukraine and threatened 100% tariffs on Russia, along with sanctions on countries that continue enabling its wartime economy. He set a 50-day deadline for the two sides to reach a peace deal. I know exactly how long that is. I spent nearly that amount of time at or near the zero line in Ukraine during the summer of 2022, before the rise of mass-produced suicide drones and industrialized attrition. Survival has become exponentially harder since then. The battlefield today is not the one I endured. It's more lethal, more unforgiving and increasingly devoid of illusions. I commend Trump for finally accepting what many of us learned the hard way: Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot be bargained with. I, too, once believed in the possibility of negotiation. I was wrong. Russia treats this war as a zero-sum game. Every Ukrainian gain is interpreted as an existential loss. That mindset rules out compromise and guarantees escalation. For Moscow, this war has ceased to be about reclaiming land or protecting cultural spheres of influence. It is now a vehicle for regime preservation through devastation. Territory is incidental; what matters is demonstrating that Russia can destroy, intimidate and endure—no matter the human cost. The summer campaign is unfolding with grim clarity. Russian forces have carved a salient west of Novoekonomichne and Hrodivka, forming a protrusion that places mounting pressure on the Pokrovsk axis. While not yet encircled, Pokrovsk is increasingly at risk of being flanked from multiple directions. Simultaneously, pressure in the Konstantinivka sector appears aimed at degrading transit hubs vital to Ukrainian logistics. Both towns are critical to stabilizing the broader Donbas front. If Russian forces manage to compromise either, it could open a path for deeper offensives toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk: the symbolic and operational core of Ukraine's eastern defenses. To the north, Kupiansk remains a major objective. Its capture would sever logistical arteries feeding the Kharkiv and Luhansk fronts and reopen a corridor for Russia to apply pressure along the Oskil River. Beyond its tactical value, Kupiansk would serve as a powerful propaganda tool, validating Moscow's narrative of regained momentum after prior stagnation. With roughly six to eight weeks left in the summer fighting season, Russia is moving urgently to lock in territorial gains before seasonal conditions and intensified Ukrainian resistance bring operations to a standstill. But ammunition and hardware aren't the only Ukrainian deficits. The country is suffering from a quiet manpower crisis. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remains popular, and public support for the war endures, but voluntary enlistment is thinning. Draft dodging is rising. Meanwhile, Ukraine grows more reliant on foreign volunteers, especially from Latin America, where casualty rates among Brazilians and Colombians are increasingly reported—more so than foreign volunteers from Europe or North America. There's no easy way out. Without sustained economic pressure on Russia's wartime economy, the war is unlikely to end this year. A sanctions regime must follow this 50-day window, with a sanctions package strong enough to paralyze Russia's economic and financial engines and pressure its global enablers to reconsider their complicity. Rhetoric alone won't shift the momentum. These next 50 days will be among the most punishing of the war. They will be filled with trench warfare under drone surveillance, men wounded and left waiting for days before extraction, cities struck by missiles in the dead of night. Kyiv remains a modern European capital under siege. What matters now is clarity of purpose. Trump appears—for now—to be signaling that he sees the war as it is, not as he once hoped it might be. This war has become a case study in how democracies respond to existential threats while leadership changes hands. For Taiwan, that lesson matters. The lack of strategic continuity in Western policy—swerving from one administration's doctrine to the next—has emboldened autocracies to test thresholds. If Ukraine falters because of a policy lapse tied to political transition, Beijing will take note. The fate of Taiwan may hinge not just on military readiness, but on whether the free world can signal resolve that outlasts its election cycles. Ukraine must hold the line. If it does, these 50 days may not just turn the tide in Donbas—they may reset the moral and strategic compass of the West. Benjamin Stuart Reed is a US military veteran of Iraq and a former security contractor who worked in Afghanistan. He later volunteered in Ukraine, where he served in frontline roles during the early phase of the war. A fluent speaker of several languages, he has lived abroad extensively, including four years in Thailand. He is represented by Writers House Literary Agency in New York for his forthcoming memoir, 'War Tourist.'
South China Morning Post
an hour ago
- South China Morning Post
US-China trade deal may resemble phase 1 agreement from Trump's first term: ex-official
The US-China deal under negotiation is likely to bear similarities to the phase one trade agreement from Donald Trump's first term, according to a former senior official in that administration – offering clues to what the highly anticipated pact may look like just weeks before a trade truce between the two rival economies is set to expire. The agreement is 'very likely to resemble, in its broad contours, the phase one trade deal negotiated between 2017 and 2020, and at the heart of that was a substantial purchase of US agricultural and industrial goods', said Stephen Biegun, deputy secretary of state under Donald Trump from 2019 to 2021, at the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday. Under the deal struck in 2020, China agreed to buy an additional US$200 billion worth of American goods and services over two years compared to 2017 levels. Much of that deal did not materialise, partly due to the economic devastation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic that began soon after the agreement was signed. Trump officials have, to varying degrees, signalled a desire to revive the deal . On the first day of his second term, the US president signed an executive order directing a review of China's compliance with the agreement. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is leading the current trade negotiations, has cited Beijing's failure to meet its commitments as something to 'take into account' – and called the phase one deal a 'road map' for current talks. Explaining why he expects a similar framework this time, Biegun said Chinese officials have recognised that they have to 'pay a certain price' to create 'at least some temporary balance in the US-China trade relationship'. 'The [US] president uses the trade balance as his singular yardstick to measure the economic fairness in bilateral relations with any country around the world, including allies,' Biegun explained. 'And it's no different in the case of China.'
AllAfrica
3 hours ago
- AllAfrica
Can Indonesia stay non-aligned while joining BRICS?
When Indonesia joined this year's BRICS Summit as a full member in Rio de Janeiro, it was stepping into a long-anticipated role. The Southeast Asian nation has long aspired to be more than a leading regional actor; it seeks to be a global leader, and BRICS membership offered the symbolism of arrival. President Prabowo Subianto leveraged the moment to call for a revitalized multilateral order, greater South–South cooperation and fairer global governance. He invoked the spirit of Bandung — the 1955 conference Indonesia famously convened to unite newly independent nations under the banner of peace, solidarity and nonalignment. But for all the talk of balance, Indonesia's BRICS debut also raised fresh concerns about tilt as questions arise about whether Prabowo's Indonesia is drifting into China and Russia's orbit and away from the West. The evidence is not conclusive, but the optics are striking. In one of his first diplomatic moves after winning the presidency, Prabowo flew to Beijing — even before formally taking office. He later signed a joint statement with China, which many in the region saw as overly conciliatory, particularly regarding the South China Sea, where the two nations have overlapping claims. Meanwhile, at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Prabowo praised China and Russia as countries 'without double standards,' raising eyebrows given both countries' questionable records on sovereignty, repression and international norms. His absence from the G7 summit only deepened the perception of lean. Indonesia has good reasons to challenge the dominance of Western institutions. Western powers have long wielded influence in ways that often ignore or exploit the interests of the Global South. The failures are real — from broken climate finance promises, to selective outrage over territorial violations, to a rules-based order applied unequally. Indonesia is right to demand reform. But opposing Western hypocrisy should not mean excusing the same behaviors when they come from elsewhere. This is the core danger of being seen as part of an 'anti-Western axis': it casts foreign policy not as a principled stand, but as an act of alignment — the very thing Indonesia's bebas aktif doctrine was designed to avoid. That doctrine, which has guided Indonesia since the Cold War, rests on two pillars: independence and active engagement. It allowed Indonesia to work with all sides without serving any. It's what gave Jakarta the credibility to lead the Non-Aligned Movement and host the Bandung Conference. And it remains one of Indonesia's most strategic diplomatic assets. But independence is not neutrality. And active engagement means speaking up, especially when it's inconvenient. Indonesia's foreign policy cannot succeed if it avoids difficult conversations. Jakarta must be willing to call out abuses of power wherever they occur: in the West, yes, but also in China, Russia and other BRICS members. Remaining silent on Russia's invasion of Ukraine or downplaying China's human rights violations in Xinjiang doesn't look like independent diplomacy. It looks like avoidance. Indonesia's power lies in its ability to serve as a bridge — between the developed and developing world, between major powers and emerging ones. But bridges require trust. And trust comes from consistency. Right now, that consistency is in question. If Indonesia speaks forcefully against Western double standards but not against the violations of its new BRICS partners, it risks being seen as selective rather than principled. Indonesia should engage the West and the non-West. It should deepen cooperation with China and maintain strong ties with the US, Europe and Japan. It should continue playing an active role in ASEAN and take full advantage of its BRICS membership to promote reform of global governance. But with every new partnership comes a harder obligation: the obligation to hold partners accountable. This is especially critical as BRICS – now expanded to include Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Iran, the UAE and Indonesia, thus representing more than half the world's population – itself evolves. What started as an economic bloc is now drifting into the realm of political identity. With members like Russia and China in the fold, BRICS risks becoming more about opposition to the West than about offering meaningful alternatives. Indonesia's job is not to amplify that drift — it's to anchor the bloc in something more constructive. At the Rio summit, Prabowo rightly invoked the legacy of Bandung. But Bandung was not about polite diplomacy. It was about bold leadership from the Global South — leadership that challenged colonialism, injustice and domination in all forms. That legacy only lives on if Indonesia is willing to confront power, not just shift its gaze from one pole to another. The world doesn't need another country choosing sides. It needs countries willing to speak honestly to all sides. That is the test Indonesia now faces. At BRICS, Indonesia took a step onto a bigger stage. What it says next — and who it's willing to say it to — will determine whether it becomes a global leader or just another cautious voice in a crowded room. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is director of the China-Indonesia Desk at Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS).
