BRICS: A threat and a promise
A promising model in the birth of such a multipolar order is the BRICS alliance which has positioned itself as a potential force in global leadership. Established in 2009, BRICS was founded on the premise that international institutions were overly dominated by western powers and had ceased to serve developing countries. The bloc has sought to coordinate its members' economic and diplomatic policies, found new financial institutions, and reduce dependence on the US dollar. The acronym refers to the founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa which became a member in 2011; in 2024 BRICS expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Indonesia. Also in 2024, new 'partner countries' were added: Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan, these countries do not have full member status, but are allowed to participate in BRICS summits.
Once the Russia Ukraine War broke out in February 2022, the US and its European allies imposed harsh economic sanctions on Russia, which they hoped would break Russia and defeat it. Russia, however, was able to break away from the long-standing structures of the global economic order and established for itself alternative pathways. BRICS was among the means that not only helped Russia withstand the ramifications of the sanctions, but also helped form a new global coalition that challenged the global order imposed on the world since the end of WWII.
In this context, I will here print excerpts from an 11 July talk by Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar who was interviewed by Judge Andrew Napolitano on his podcast Judging Freedom. Mr Escobar, 71, covered the BRICS summit that took place earlier this month in Sao Paolo. During the summit he met with heads and representatives of the participating delegations, and he covered the summit's developments and activities.
Judge Napolitano: Tell us about the [BRICS summit's] final declaration. I understand that it addressed finance, security and culture.
Mr Escobar: 'At the end of the BRICS business council, we spent a whole day with business people from all over the global south discussing projects. At the end of another meeting of the NDB, the BRICS Development Bank, Russian Finance Minister Anton Silvanov announced that from now on the NDB, the BRICS bank headquarter in Shanghai, may be working towards becoming the main platform to finance development projects and mega projects across the BRICS sphere bypassing SWIFT; the subtext of what he said is this is de-dollarisation in action… It starts with the NDB, the BRICS bank. It will expand to direct trade between BRICS members. In the case of Russia and China, they are already transacting 90 per cent of their trade in their own currencies in one boost and expanding to the other ones.'
The second subject matter was culture. What was addressed with respect to culture in the unanimous BRICS declaration?
'Before the summit we had a very strong debate on media alternatives to big tech controlling narratives all over the world, and of course the soft power control of culture and media by the West. So one of the proposals was: let's have a BRICS-wide media network including factchecking by BRICS members public and private to counteract this imposition of one truth only by the West. There was a letter that came out for a BRICS partner member President of Cuba Diaz Canel. I think it was extremely relevant and had enormous significance; that's the representative of a government that has been stigmatised and harassed by the United States government for decades now… They made a deal in a Rio Sputnik in Russia, Guenshine China and Brazil 247, a portal in Brazil, to increase their cooperation. So, soon we're going to have all these new media alliances and corporations BRICS-wide, and the BRICS nations won't be submitted to dictates coming from big tech and from American mainstream media or western mainstream media.'
What did the declaration say about mutual or collective security?
'BRICS is not a military alliance… This was part of the very important first discussion in the opening day where we had a President Lula opening and President Putin went online. It's an absolutely key issue because BRICS has been accused of being anti-western. The Chinese academics have a wonderful definition: BRICS is the post West environment… This means the system of international relations, geoeconomic and geopolitical, established after the end of the second world war is dead from BRICS point of view, and they are working to establish a new one. The West may join or not, because this high-speed train has already left the station.'
Do these BRICS nations fear Trump's tariffs?
'Yes, which brings us to why Brazil is on fire now… Just to give you an example, Brazil is the largest exporter of orange juice on the planet; 95 per cent of their production goes abroad, half of it goes to the United States… So they have to find tomorrow if the sanctions start to be applied on August 1st, new markets in Africa, in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, etc. But this is a complicated process.'
What a role at BRICS was played by our mutual friend, the greatest diplomat on the planet, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov?
'Lavrov is one of the masterminds in a good sense of BRICS, and the role of BRICS today at overtaking every red line imposed by the [western] empire. BRICS is now at the centre of the whole discussion about reforming the system of international relations.'
Watani International
25 July 2025 Comments
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