BRICS Can't Set Off New World Order

What brought together Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS), along with six new members—Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia—at the latest BRICS+ summit in Rio de Janeiro was their common desire to explore new ways of dealing with their development problems.

- ANITA INDER SINGH

What brought together Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS), along with six new members—Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia—at the latest BRICS+ summit in Rio de Janeiro was their common desire to explore new ways of dealing with their development problems. At its annual leaders' summit held in Brazil on July 6 and 7, the group urged new partnerships in pursuit of multilateralism, trade, and development—rather than a world driven by military alliances or ideology. As a loose grouping that includes authoritarian (China, Russia) and democratic (Brazil, India, South Africa) states, BRICS is not unique; the United Nations (UN) and the Commonwealth also comprise autocracies and democracies.

BRICS is not synonymous with a new world order. That unfortunately has been marked by Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Israel's use of starvation as a tactic in its war against Gaza, and U.S. President Donald Trump's disruptive foreign and economic policies, which have led him to deal with the U.S.'s European allies as enemies while threatening most countries with trade and tariff wars.