The woman quietly leading a BRICS bank revolution
Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is nearing the end of her first term as head of the New Development Bank (NDB), also known as the BRICS Bank, which is set to conclude in July. She has been re-elected for another two-year term, while Brazil will take over the BRICS presidency later this year.
Appointed in early 2023, Rousseff's presidency of the Shanghai-based NDB has been groundbreaking in many respects. She was not only the first woman to lead the NDB but also the first former head of state to hold the position.
As one of the bank's original architects – she helped found the NDB in 2014 during her presidency of Brazil – Rousseff viewed the institution as a tool to challenge Western dominance in development finance. She initially expressed a desire to boost investment in environmental projects and to circumvent the 'geopolitical impact of Western retaliations against Russia.'
In addition, she made clear that NDB financing would come 'without imposing conditionalities' on borrower nations, a direct contrast to traditional Western-led institutions. The idea was that developing countries should have access to funds without the political or austerity strings often attached by the likes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank.
Rousseff has made local currency lending central to her agenda, aiming for 30% of NDB loans in members' own currencies by 2026, reducing dependence on the US dollar and sidestepping the risks of Western sanctions in the process.
By late 2023, Rousseff touted a pipeline of 76 new projects worth US$18.2 billion for 2023-24, on top of the 98 projects worth $33 billion the NDB had reportedly already financed.
Her tenure kicked off with a symbolic visit from Brazil's President Lula in Shanghai in April 2023, where Lula attended her inauguration ceremony. At the ceremony, Lula praised the NDB as a partnership of emerging nations 'very different from traditional banks dominated by developed countries,' and expressed high hopes that it could help create a world with less poverty and inequality under Rousseff's watch.
Her presence at the G20, alongside leaders of the world's largest economies, signaled the NDB's growing profile on the global stage. Earlier in 2024, Rousseff had even traveled to Russia to attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, where de-dollarization and alternative financial architectures were key themes.
Rousseff has not shied away from using her political stature to give the NDB a seat at tables traditionally dominated by Western-led institutions. She has signaled to members and prospective members alike that the NDB under her leadership is open for business.
Brazil was a key testing case for the NDB's rising emergency finance efforts. In May 2024, following devastating storms and floods in southern Brazil, she announced that the NDB would extend an aid package of $1.1 billion to rebuild infrastructure in Rio Grande do Sul state.
The funding, coordinated in partnership with Brazilian public banks, was earmarked for everything from small business recovery to new roads, bridges and sanitation systems in the disaster-hit areas. Such a rapid mobilization of over a billion US dollars was unprecedented for the NDB in response to a member's natural disaster.
Under her leadership, the NDB has aligned closely with China's priorities, reflecting the NDB's utility as a tool for China to use international institutions to achieve revisionist goals. During Rousseff's first weeks in Shanghai, Brazil and China reached an agreement to set up a clearinghouse to conduct trade in Chinese yuan and Brazilian reals, thereby reducing their dollar dependence.
In May 2025, the People's Bank of China and Brazil's Central Bank signed a renewed local-currency swap agreement worth 190 billion yuan, about $27.7 billion, valid for five years and extendable.
In 2024 and so far in 2025, China-Brazil trade has increased by about 10% year to year, with Rousseff being instrumental in China-Brazil dealings. Lula's government has treated the NDB as an extension of its strategic partnership with China, a venue through which Chinese capital can more safely flow into Brazilian projects under multilateral cover.
By steering the bank to focus on local-currency lending and alternative payment systems, Rousseff indirectly aided Moscow's goal of a financial safety net outside of the US's reach. However, Russian entities themselves have not received new NDB loans since the Ukraine war began.
India and South Africa, for their part, benefited from the continuation of multi-billion-dollar NDB funding for infrastructure, transportation and renewable energy projects but saw no obvious special boost under Rousseff compared to prior NDB leadership.
If anything, some Indian analysts quietly fretted that the Rousseff-led bank became too closely aligned with China and Brazil's political understanding, potentially at India's expense, a reflection of India's wariness of overt anti-West posturing by BRICS.
Perhaps the biggest new entrant on Rousseff's watch was Indonesia (also a G20 member), which, according to BRICS officials, was approved for NDB membership by early 2025. Rousseff has actively promoted this expansion, seeing it as part of her legacy of making the NDB 'a bank of the Global South' in substance.
Still, Rousseff's appointment was polarizing from the start. Critics in Brazil's right-wing opposition accused Lula of provoking the US and aligning too closely with autocracies, while her 2016 impeachment and praise of China's governance model made her a controversial figure abroad.
Externally, Rousseff had to manage the fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine, which forced the NDB to suspend Russian loans to maintain compliance with global markets. This geopolitical balancing act, along with rising interest rates, constrained the bank's ability to expand lending.
Nonetheless, the NDB preserved its AA+ rating from S&P Global, even as Rousseff faced pressure to prove that an emerging-market-led bank could operate with high standards under global scrutiny.
Rousseff was originally expected to step down in July 2025, with Russia set to nominate her successor as part of BRICS' rotating presidency system. But due to sanctions and geopolitical constraints, which could have potentially tanked the BRICS' prospects and more neutral image as a viable international bloc, Moscow backed her continuation. In March 2025, the NDB's Board of Governors unanimously reappointed Rousseff for a second term.
Rousseff has redefined the NDB's presidency and helped elevate the bank as a key lever in China and the Global South's revisionist goals against Western financial dominance. Under her leadership, the NDB has deepened alignment with Beijing's broader strategy of building alternative global governance institutions, ones that reflect multipolarity and reduce dependence on the US-led financial institutions.
Rousseff's enthusiastic support for de-dollarization, promotion of yuan- and real-denominated lending, and facilitation of Chinese-backed infrastructure in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, positioned the NDB as a complement to China's Belt and Road Initiative in a post-Pax Americana order.
Looking ahead, Rousseff will likely stay focused on infrastructure, sustainability and social inclusion, though with perhaps sharper priorities. She reportedly plans to accelerate de-dollarization by expanding local currency lending, supporting tools like BRICS swap lines and digital payments. By any measure, these plans represent a seismic shift in development finance.
Membership expansion is also likely, with countries like Saudi Arabia and Argentina in focus, along with deeper ties to regional banks like the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and the African Development Bank. But her second term will also test her ability to manage global financial volatility and protect the bank's stability amid rising debt and geopolitical uncertainty.
To date, and not without criticism, Rousseff has been instrumental in positioning the NDB as a challenger to Western financial hegemony, offering real competition and choice to countries in the Global South previously subjugated by an often oppressive world lending system. And with that helped to usher in a quiet but consequential revolution in the international order.
Joseph Bouchard is a journalist and researcher from Québec covering security and geopolitics in Latin America. His articles have appeared in Reason, The Diplomat, The National Interest, Le Devoir and RealClearPolitics. He is an incoming PhD student in politics at the University of Virginia and SSHRC doctoral fellow on Latin American politics.
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Asia Times
6 hours ago
- Asia Times
Western democracies are actually pretty good at war
'They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too.' — William T. Sherman I am not a military analyst or expert. Usually, I look at the world through the lens of economics, which I actually have some training in. But if you want to get a good holistic picture of the world, you need to understand at least a little bit about war and conflict. I think most pundits intuitively understand this, which is why you see them weighing in on things like the usefulness of military aid to Ukraine, or the cost-effectiveness of the F-35, or the need to establish military deterrence against China. And so I do the same, while being careful to remember that I'm not any kind of expert in the field. One of the most persistent and annoying tropes I see, in discussions about war, is the idea that autocracies are inherently tough and martial, and that democracies — especially Western democracies — are irresolute, decadent, flaccid, and generally not very good at fighting. You see this when rightists praise Russian military ads where soldiers do a bunch of push-ups, and decry the state of America's 'they/them army' in comparison. You can see it when leftists declare that America loses every war it fights (which is obviously false). The idea is ingrained in our deep history — Thucydides lamented that 'a democracy is incapable of empire', and plenty of modern people will cite autocratic Sparta's victory over democratic Athens in the Peloponnesian War.1 In fact, if you just looked at the results of the last two decades, you might be forgiven for buying the authoritarian hype. America was pushed out of Afghanistan, and its proxies quickly collapsed under the Taliban assault. Most people also say the US lost the Iraq War.2 Democratic Armenia quickly lost a war to autocratic Azerbaijan in 2020, Israel broke its teeth on Hezbollah in 2006, Russia smashed Georgia easily in 2008, and Russia easily took Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Since the turn of the century, military victories for Western democracies have been few and far between. But over the past three years, the tide seems to have turned once more. Ukraine, astonishing the entire world, fought mighty Russia — a country four times its size and with far higher GDP per capita — to a standstill. In 2024, Israel smashed Hezbollah within just a few weeks; the Iranian-backed militia retreated from the border and its authority is now being replaced by the elected Lebanese government. And now there's the war between Israel and Iran. The war just started; all of us are still just monitoring the situation. It seems hard to think that Israel can prevail in a protracted confrontation with a nation with nine times its population and more than three times its GDP (PPP).3 But as of right now, the tiny David is smacking around the big Goliath. Israel quickly established air supremacy over much of Iran itself, despite the huge distances between the countries, using a mix of traditional aircraft and drones: Just four days into its ferocious air campaign, Israel appears to have gained a decisive edge in its escalating conflict with Iran: aerial supremacy over Iran…The Israeli military said Monday that it can now fly over the country's capital, Tehran, without facing major resistance after crippling Iran's air defenses in recent strikes, enabling Israel to hit an expanding range of targets with relative ease…Such control over Iran's skies, military analysts say, is not just a tactical advantage—it's a strategic turning point…Israel has carried out one of the most intense and far-reaching air operations in its history, targeting nuclear sites, missile launchers, airports, and senior figures in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps… For Israel to claim this over Iran just days after the strikes began is an impressive military accomplishment, says Michael Knights, the Bernstein Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute who specializes in Middle Eastern security. 'It's exceptional to get this level of freedom. I'm quite surprised that they've managed it,' he says[.] Israel has destroyed Iran's best fighter jets on the ground. Iran has been reduced to firing off ballistic missiles into Israeli cities in retaliation. But the strikes, while visually impressive, have not been very deadly (the Israelis all have bomb shelters). And the Israelis are managing to quickly degrade Iran's missile capabilities: Iran is firing fewer missiles at Israel each day after Israel secured dominance over Iranian skies, enabling it to destroy launchers and take out missiles before they even leave the ground…Israel said on Sunday that it had created an air corridor to Tehran. By Monday, it said its air force had complete control over the skies of Tehran…This aerial control is proving crucial. Iran fired some 200 missiles in four barrages in its first round of attacks against Israel on Friday and Saturday. But between Tuesday and Wednesday, Iran fired 60 missiles at Israel over eight different waves of strikes, at times sending fewer than a dozen at a time…Israel's aircraft and other security forces have destroyed 120 missile launchers[.] Israel hasn't yet decapitated the Iranian regime, but it's killing lots of key figures. This is a pretty stunningly bad performance for Iran — a country that is sometimes touted as a key member of a new Axis with Russia and China — against a country with the population and land area of New Jersey. Israel isn't quite Western — more than half of its population is descended from Middle Easterners — and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown some authoritarian tendencies. Nor is Israel a particularly liberal state, at least as far as its treatment of the Palestinians goes. But it's a heck of a lot closer to being a 'Western democracy' than Iran is. Rumors of the weakness and decay of the West, and of the inferiority of democracies in the face of autocratic power, seem to have been at least somewhat exaggerated. What's going on? In fact, the first two decades of the 21st century may have been an aberration; democracies actually do tend to win wars more often than they lose. A quick glance at history will disabuse any neutral observer of the notion that Western-style democracies are militarily weak. Consider how France held off attacks by all of Europe for decades after its revolution, or how the Anglo-American side won both World Wars, or how Israel beat a bunch of its neighbors in a series of wars, etc. Hitler and Mussolini both loudly proclaimed that democracies were weak and decadent, yet it was they who ended up in history's graveyard. In fact, there's pretty robust evidence that democracies — at least, as we currently identify them — tend to win wars more often than autocracies do. Dobransky (2014) finds that 'democracies win the large majority (84%) of wars that they are involved in.' Reiter and Stam (2014) find the same: Analyzing all interstate wars from 1816 to 1982 with a multivariate probit model, we find that democratic initiators are significantly more likely to win wars; democratic targets are also more likely to win, though the relationship is not as strong. Mathematically, this must mean that democracies tend to defeat autocracies when the two fight, because if two autocracies or two democracies fight each other, a win for one nets out to a loss for the other. Political scientists have any number of theories to explain why this happens. One obvious possibility is that democratic countries fight fewer wars in the first place, and only tend to fight when they have a good chance of winning. This is David Lake's theory, which he calls the 'powerful pacifists' theory. Reiter and Stam, who have a book called 'Democracies at War', agree with Lake that autocracies tend to start riskier wars than democracies do. But they have very different reasons for thinking this. Lake thinks dictators tend to start wars for resources because running a dictatorship is very costly. Reiter and Stam, on the other hand, think that dictators start wars because they're more secure in their power, and thus are less afraid of the negative consequences from a war going badly. Honestly, I'm not very convinced by either of these explanations. Yes, there are some wars over economic resources — Saddam Hussein invading Iran to try to capture its oil fields in 1980 comes to mind. But I don't think most wars are mostly over treasure in the modern age. The World Wars were mostly over ideology and perceived threats rather than imperial conquests. Putin didn't invade Ukraine for money, and money has nothing to do with why Iran has been sending proxies to attack Israel for decades. Even when wars do have an economic component, the benefit of winning rarely justifies the cost of fighting in the first place — witness America's inability to extract significant value from the oil fields of Iraq. Likewise, I think it's unlikely that dictators are less afraid of losing wars. Yes, they may be better positioned to cling to power in the event of a loss, while democratic leaders will be promptly voted out of office. But the lower probability of an autocrat being tossed out of power comes with a much greater severity . A US president who loses a war might be voted out of office; when Mussolini lost a war, he ended up hanging from a gas station, riddled with bullets. So honestly, I'd be more cautious if I were a dictator. I think there's a much more obvious reason why democracies choose their wars more carefully. In general, the people who actually have to go fight a war tend to like war less than the leaders who simply order their armies forward from the safety of their bunkers. So democracies, where the people are more in control, tend to be pacifist; they only tend to fight either when they have a good chance of winning, or when their back is to the wall and they can't afford to lose. When they are finally moved to fight, the stakes tend to be high, the people tend to be united and motivated, and the cause tends to be one that draws in lots of allies. Economic factors probably play a role too. Lake thinks democracies have more economic resources to devote to war, because he believes they tend to spend more money on building up their economies, while autocracies tend to be extractive.4 This makes sense sometimes — think of how America outproduced the Axis in World War 2. On the margin, I think it makes a difference, but I'm skeptical of how much it can explain overall, because population size often differs so much between combatants that per capita GDP differences become less important. Consider Israel versus Iran — at PPP, Iran's economy is much larger, because it's a much larger country, even though it's poorer. There's another economic factor at work, which is technological advancement; having a higher per capita GDP generally means having better technology, which can be used for weaponry. Israel has a smaller economy than Iran, but because it has a richer, more technologically advanced economy, it can do a lot fancier stuff — with drones, aircraft, missile defense, precision weaponry, hacking, digital intelligence gathering, and so on. As for whether democracy actually makes a country richer and more technologically advanced, that's a topic of ongoing debate. Some people think democracy is good for growth; others think that as countries get richer, their citizenry starts to demand a transition to democracy. Other people think it's a historical accident. But whatever it is, democracies do statistically tend to be richer than autocracies, and being rich helps in war. Actually, you don't always need to be richer in order to have superior technology. Ukraine is much poorer than Russia on a per capita basis, but it has a lot of great computer programmers and engineers — it has repeatedly innovated in drone warfare during the current war, forcing Russia to scramble to keep up. Reiter and Stam also argue that the way dictatorships make decisions is not very conducive to effective war-fighting. In an op-ed written shortly after the start of the Ukraine war, they explain: [L]ike most dictators, Putin probably has some concerns about being overthrown by his own military. Dictators guard against this potential threat by centralizing military command authority and reducing the ability of lower-level commanders to take the initiative in battle… These moves may reduce an army's ability to seize power in a crisis — but also undercut the military's ability to defeat foreign foes…Putin's army today demonstrates the calcification and rigidity of a dictatorship. He appears unwilling to delegate decision-making autonomy to lower-level commanders, reducing military effectiveness… [D]ictators often surround themselves with yes-men and political cronies, who deceive or remain silent rather than tell the unvarnished truth…In contrast, democratic leaders are more likely to have the benefit of robust debate inside and outside government…Every indication is that the Russian president is isolated and getting poor information…Putin's generals and intelligence chief reportedly refused to tell him the truth before the war: that years of Russian military reform had not made substantial progress, instead producing a 'Potemkin military.' That makes lots of sense. To this I'd add the simple fact that if your country happens to have a dictator, he's probably simply more politically capable of micromanaging — and mismanaging — the military, whether or not he's doing it because he's afraid of a coup. So I'd say the three main hypotheses for why democracies tend to win more wars are: Democracies fight less, so they tend to only fight more winnable wars Democracies have better economies and technology Autocracies have structural tendencies toward military mismanagement and poor information flow Most of these make sense in explaining Ukraine's success in holding off Russia. Ukraine didn't want to fight this war, or any war; they only fought because their backs were to the wall and the survival of their nation was at stake. They have proven to be technologically innovative and resourceful, even with their much smaller economy. And their decision-making has been consistently better and quicker than that of the plodding Russians. These factors also help explain Israel's success against Iran. Israel does fight a lot of wars, but that's because it has a lot of enemies who attack it a lot; other than their slow colonization of the West Bank, Israel has no imperial designs. Iran, in contrast, is constantly meddling in conflicts all around it, supporting proxy armies in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Gaza. With Israel, Iran picked on someone who was able to stand up and punch it in the nose. Israel also has superior technology, better command and control, and a more unified, engaged populace. But there's one other important hypothesis for why democracies have tended to win wars — help from the United States. For about as long as democracy has been around, the US was the world's mightiest economic and technological power, capable of sending game-changing weaponry anywhere in the world. That didn't always guarantee victory, obviously — America's proxies in Vietnam and Afghanistan were so weak that they collapsed even with US supplies. And no country will be successful in war unless it makes plenty of weapons itself — as Ukraine and Israel both do. But it's undeniable that American assistance has been at least somewhat important for both Ukraine and Israel in their current conflicts. And that's a big problem right now. Because the US is no longer the world's leading economic power — at least, not by any metric that would matter in a war. And whatever remains of its technological leadership is quickly vanishing. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, it's an autocracy — China — that commands the greatest resources. Even if the US hadn't allowed its defense-industrial base to wither, China would still manufacture as much as America and all of its democratic allies combined: Source: UN Industrial Development Organization As for technology, there are still a few areas where America is ahead, such as leading-edge computer chips and aircraft engines. But in most areas of manufacturing and software, China has caught up or almost caught up, including in AI. And in some crucial areas, like batteries and magnets, America has voluntarily forfeited and isn't even in the race. That means that if China does choose to fight America, one big traditional advantage of democracies — economic and technological supremacy — won't exist. Instead, a best-case scenario is that it would be more like World War I before the entry of the US, where Britain, France and Russia found themselves evenly matched against a somewhat autocratic but technologically and economically advanced Germany. Nor is China likely to rush clumsily into war the way Putin did. In the 20th century, China did get involved in some reckless, stupid wars — in Korea in 1950 and Vietnam in 1979, neither of which it won. But since then, China has shown extreme caution. Its leaders definitely seem determined to build up overwhelming power before taking Taiwan or other territories in Asia. If the U.S. has to fight China, it will be at a time and place of their choosing, not ours — and they will likely have most of their people unified behind the effort. This doesn't mean the democracies would have no advantage against China. The structural problems of autocracies — poor information flow, overcentralization of power, paranoid infighting — all seem present, as Xi Jinping completes his transformation of Deng Xiaoping's bureaucratic, technocratic system into something closer to a traditional dictatorship. Xi has already made a ton of mistakes, many of them related to micromanagement — Zero Covid, Belt and Road, the crackdown on IT in 2021, the real estate bust, 'wolf warrior' diplomacy, and so on. It's likely he would micromanage a war as well. Meanwhile, Xi has been purging his top military officers, many of whom he himself appointed, at a stupendous rate, for reasons unknown. So if China does fight America, it will have some of the same sorts of disadvantages that Russia has with Putin. But it's far from clear whether these would be enough to overcome China's massive manufacturing advantage. Democracy is a lot tougher than people give it credit for, but it's not magic. 1 Though note that Sparta itself was promptly defeated by Thebes, which had transitioned to democratic rule several years earlier. 2 This is clearly false. The US didn't just overthrow Saddam with ease; it also defeated Sunni and Shia militias alike, and then defeated ISIS. The regime that the US set up in Saddam's wake is still in control in Iraq, and is still friendly to the US By every conceivable past and present definition of what it means to 'win' a war, the US won the Iraq War. However, the victory didn't benefit the US strategically — it diminished America's geopolitical standing and broke the global norm of non-aggression that the US had championed since World War 2, paving the way for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. So the Iraq War is a demonstration of the fact that victory in war isn't always worth fighting the war in the first place. In contrast, the Afghanistan War was a loss for the US, but Al Qaeda was effectively destroyed, Osama bin Laden and all other 9/11 planners were captured or killed, and the Taliban were neutralized as a strategic threat. 3 PPP is probably better than market exchange rates when comparing economies for military purposes, since most military goods — especially soldiers' salaries and provisions — are produced domestically rather than acquired on world markets. This is especially true for Iran, which is under international sanctions. 4 This is a key implication of Selectorate Theory, which is popular among political scientists. This article was first published on Noah Smith's Noahpinion Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become a Noahopinion subscriber here.
Asia Times
6 hours ago
- Asia Times
The woman quietly leading a BRICS bank revolution
Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is nearing the end of her first term as head of the New Development Bank (NDB), also known as the BRICS Bank, which is set to conclude in July. She has been re-elected for another two-year term, while Brazil will take over the BRICS presidency later this year. Appointed in early 2023, Rousseff's presidency of the Shanghai-based NDB has been groundbreaking in many respects. She was not only the first woman to lead the NDB but also the first former head of state to hold the position. As one of the bank's original architects – she helped found the NDB in 2014 during her presidency of Brazil – Rousseff viewed the institution as a tool to challenge Western dominance in development finance. She initially expressed a desire to boost investment in environmental projects and to circumvent the 'geopolitical impact of Western retaliations against Russia.' In addition, she made clear that NDB financing would come 'without imposing conditionalities' on borrower nations, a direct contrast to traditional Western-led institutions. The idea was that developing countries should have access to funds without the political or austerity strings often attached by the likes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank. Rousseff has made local currency lending central to her agenda, aiming for 30% of NDB loans in members' own currencies by 2026, reducing dependence on the US dollar and sidestepping the risks of Western sanctions in the process. By late 2023, Rousseff touted a pipeline of 76 new projects worth US$18.2 billion for 2023-24, on top of the 98 projects worth $33 billion the NDB had reportedly already financed. Her tenure kicked off with a symbolic visit from Brazil's President Lula in Shanghai in April 2023, where Lula attended her inauguration ceremony. At the ceremony, Lula praised the NDB as a partnership of emerging nations 'very different from traditional banks dominated by developed countries,' and expressed high hopes that it could help create a world with less poverty and inequality under Rousseff's watch. Her presence at the G20, alongside leaders of the world's largest economies, signaled the NDB's growing profile on the global stage. Earlier in 2024, Rousseff had even traveled to Russia to attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, where de-dollarization and alternative financial architectures were key themes. Rousseff has not shied away from using her political stature to give the NDB a seat at tables traditionally dominated by Western-led institutions. She has signaled to members and prospective members alike that the NDB under her leadership is open for business. Brazil was a key testing case for the NDB's rising emergency finance efforts. In May 2024, following devastating storms and floods in southern Brazil, she announced that the NDB would extend an aid package of $1.1 billion to rebuild infrastructure in Rio Grande do Sul state. The funding, coordinated in partnership with Brazilian public banks, was earmarked for everything from small business recovery to new roads, bridges and sanitation systems in the disaster-hit areas. Such a rapid mobilization of over a billion US dollars was unprecedented for the NDB in response to a member's natural disaster. Under her leadership, the NDB has aligned closely with China's priorities, reflecting the NDB's utility as a tool for China to use international institutions to achieve revisionist goals. During Rousseff's first weeks in Shanghai, Brazil and China reached an agreement to set up a clearinghouse to conduct trade in Chinese yuan and Brazilian reals, thereby reducing their dollar dependence. In May 2025, the People's Bank of China and Brazil's Central Bank signed a renewed local-currency swap agreement worth 190 billion yuan, about $27.7 billion, valid for five years and extendable. In 2024 and so far in 2025, China-Brazil trade has increased by about 10% year to year, with Rousseff being instrumental in China-Brazil dealings. Lula's government has treated the NDB as an extension of its strategic partnership with China, a venue through which Chinese capital can more safely flow into Brazilian projects under multilateral cover. By steering the bank to focus on local-currency lending and alternative payment systems, Rousseff indirectly aided Moscow's goal of a financial safety net outside of the US's reach. However, Russian entities themselves have not received new NDB loans since the Ukraine war began. India and South Africa, for their part, benefited from the continuation of multi-billion-dollar NDB funding for infrastructure, transportation and renewable energy projects but saw no obvious special boost under Rousseff compared to prior NDB leadership. If anything, some Indian analysts quietly fretted that the Rousseff-led bank became too closely aligned with China and Brazil's political understanding, potentially at India's expense, a reflection of India's wariness of overt anti-West posturing by BRICS. Perhaps the biggest new entrant on Rousseff's watch was Indonesia (also a G20 member), which, according to BRICS officials, was approved for NDB membership by early 2025. Rousseff has actively promoted this expansion, seeing it as part of her legacy of making the NDB 'a bank of the Global South' in substance. Still, Rousseff's appointment was polarizing from the start. Critics in Brazil's right-wing opposition accused Lula of provoking the US and aligning too closely with autocracies, while her 2016 impeachment and praise of China's governance model made her a controversial figure abroad. Externally, Rousseff had to manage the fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine, which forced the NDB to suspend Russian loans to maintain compliance with global markets. This geopolitical balancing act, along with rising interest rates, constrained the bank's ability to expand lending. Nonetheless, the NDB preserved its AA+ rating from S&P Global, even as Rousseff faced pressure to prove that an emerging-market-led bank could operate with high standards under global scrutiny. Rousseff was originally expected to step down in July 2025, with Russia set to nominate her successor as part of BRICS' rotating presidency system. But due to sanctions and geopolitical constraints, which could have potentially tanked the BRICS' prospects and more neutral image as a viable international bloc, Moscow backed her continuation. In March 2025, the NDB's Board of Governors unanimously reappointed Rousseff for a second term. Rousseff has redefined the NDB's presidency and helped elevate the bank as a key lever in China and the Global South's revisionist goals against Western financial dominance. Under her leadership, the NDB has deepened alignment with Beijing's broader strategy of building alternative global governance institutions, ones that reflect multipolarity and reduce dependence on the US-led financial institutions. Rousseff's enthusiastic support for de-dollarization, promotion of yuan- and real-denominated lending, and facilitation of Chinese-backed infrastructure in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, positioned the NDB as a complement to China's Belt and Road Initiative in a post-Pax Americana order. Looking ahead, Rousseff will likely stay focused on infrastructure, sustainability and social inclusion, though with perhaps sharper priorities. She reportedly plans to accelerate de-dollarization by expanding local currency lending, supporting tools like BRICS swap lines and digital payments. By any measure, these plans represent a seismic shift in development finance. Membership expansion is also likely, with countries like Saudi Arabia and Argentina in focus, along with deeper ties to regional banks like the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and the African Development Bank. But her second term will also test her ability to manage global financial volatility and protect the bank's stability amid rising debt and geopolitical uncertainty. To date, and not without criticism, Rousseff has been instrumental in positioning the NDB as a challenger to Western financial hegemony, offering real competition and choice to countries in the Global South previously subjugated by an often oppressive world lending system. And with that helped to usher in a quiet but consequential revolution in the international order. Joseph Bouchard is a journalist and researcher from Québec covering security and geopolitics in Latin America. His articles have appeared in Reason, The Diplomat, The National Interest, Le Devoir and RealClearPolitics. He is an incoming PhD student in politics at the University of Virginia and SSHRC doctoral fellow on Latin American politics.
Asia Times
7 hours ago
- Asia Times
Who are Iran's true allies and will they help if US joins the war?
As Israel continues its attacks on Iran, US President Donald Trump and other global leaders are hardening their stance against the Islamic Republic. While considering a US attack on Iran's nuclear sites, Trump has threatened Iran's supreme leader, claiming to know his location and calling him 'an easy target.' He has demanded 'unconditional surrender' from Iran. Meanwhile, countries such as Germany, Canada, the UK and Australia have toughened their rhetoric, demanding Iran fully abandon its nuclear program. So, as the pressure mounts on Iran, has it been left to fight alone? Or does it have allies that could come to its aid? Has Iran's 'axis of resistance' fully collapsed? Iran has long relied on a network of allied paramilitary groups across the Middle East as part of its deterrence strategy. This approach has largely shielded it from direct military strikes by the US or Israel, despite constant threats and pressure. This so-called 'axis of resistance' includes groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq, the Houthi militants in Yemen, as well as Hamas in Gaza, which has long been under Iran's influence to varying degrees. Iran also supported Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria before it was toppled last year. Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) carry images of comrades killed in US airstrikes in western Iraq in 2024. Photo: Ahmed Jalil / EPA via The Conversation These groups have served both as a regional buffer and as a means for Iran to project power without direct engagement. However, over the past two years, Israel has dealt significant blows to the network. Hezbollah — once Iran's most powerful non-state ally — has been effectively neutralised after months of attacks by Israel. Its weapons stocks were systematically targeted and destroyed across Lebanon. And the group suffered a major psychological and strategic loss with the assassination of its most influential leader, Hassan Nasrallah. In Syria, Iranian-backed militias have been largely expelled following the fall of Assad's regime, stripping Iran of another key foothold in the region. That said, Iran maintains strong influence in Iraq and Yemen. The PMF in Iraq, with an estimated 200,000 fighters, remains formidable. The Houthis have similarly-sized contingent of fighters in Yemen. Should the situation escalate into an existential threat to Iran — as the region's only Shiite-led state — religious solidarity could drive these groups to become actively involved. This would rapidly expand the war across the region. The PMF, for instance, could launch attacks on the 2,500 US troops stationed in Iraq. Indeed, the head of Kata'ib Hezbollah, one of the PMF's more hardline factions, promised to do so: If America dares to intervene in the war, we will directly target its interests and military bases spread across the region without hesitation. Iran itself could also target US bases in the Persian Gulf countries with ballistic missiles, as well as close the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world's oil supply flows. Houthi supporters hold anti-US and Israel placards and wave the flags of the Iran-backed 'axis of resistance' during a protest in Yemen's capital. Photo: Yahya Arhab / EPA via The Conversation Will Iran's regional and global allies step in? Several regional powers maintain close ties with Iran. The most notable among them is Pakistan — the only Islamic country with a nuclear arsenal. For weeks, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has tried to align Iran more closely with Pakistan in countering Israel's actions in Gaza. In a sign of Pakistan's importance in the Israel-Iran war, Trump has met with the country's army chief in Washington as he weighs a possible strike on its neighbour. Pakistan's leaders have also made their allegiances very clear. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has offered Iran's president 'unwavering solidarity' in the 'face of Israel's unprovoked aggression.' And Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif recently said in an interview Israel will 'think many times before taking on Pakistan.' These statements signal a firm stance without explicitly committing to intervention. Yet, Pakistan has also been working to de-escalate tensions. It has urged other Muslim-majority nations and its strategic partner, China, to intervene diplomatically before the violence spirals into a broader regional war. In recent years, Iran has also made diplomatic overtures to former regional rivals, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in order to improve relations. These shifts have helped rally broader regional support for Iran. Nearly two dozen Muslim-majority countries — including some that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel — have jointly condemned Israel's actions and urged de-escalation. It's unlikely, though, that regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey would support Iran materially, given their strong alliances with the US. Iran's key global allies, Russia and China, have also condemned Israel's strikes. They have previously shielded Tehran from punitive resolutions at the UN Security Council. However, neither power appears willing — at least for now — to escalate the confrontation by providing direct military support to Iran or engaging in a standoff with Israel and the US. Theoretically, this could change if the conflict widens and Washington openly pursues a regime change strategy in Tehran. Both nations have major geopolitical and security interests in Iran's stability. This is due to Iran's long-standing 'Look East' policy and the impact its instability could have on the region and the global economy. However, at the current stage, many analysts believe both are unlikely to get involved directly. Moscow stayed on the sidelines when Assad's regime collapsed in Syria, one of Russia's closest allies in the region. Not only is it focused on its war in Ukraine, Russia also wouldn't want to endanger improving ties with the Trump administration. China has offered Iran strong rhetorical support, but history suggests it has little interest in getting directly involved in Middle Eastern conflicts. Ali Mamouri is research fellow, Middle East Studies, Deakin University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
