This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin convened more than 20 countries to discuss a “new world order” free from Western hegemony and the global domination of the US dollar.
From Tuesday to Thursday, about 20 members will gather in Kazan, Russia, for this year’s BRICS summit, giving Putin the biggest global platform since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The alliance hopes to avoid sanctions by the United States and other Western countries by reducing its dependence on the dollar.
“The dollar is being used as a weapon,” President Putin said at the summit. “We actually see that this is the case. We think this is a big mistake on the part of the people who do this.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the summit to express hope for more harmonious relations after decades of cross-border conflict.
This came days after China and India agreed to a deal aimed at ending a four-year military standoff over the disputed Himalayan region.
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This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin convened more than 20 countries to discuss a “new world order” free from Western hegemony and the global domination of the US dollar. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool, via Reuters)
“Russia-China cooperation in international affairs is one of the world’s main stabilizing factors,” Putin told Xi at the summit.
Meanwhile, India is supporting the Russian economy by purchasing crude oil, which is sanctioned by many countries around the world, at a discount.
BRICS (short for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is an idea coined by Goldman Sachs analysts to explain the growing economic hegemony of China and other emerging markets.
The group is rapidly expanding, with Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia joining in January. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have formally applied, making Turkey the first NATO member to take an interest in the group. Pakistan has also expressed interest in joining the group.
This alliance currently accounts for half of the world’s population and 35% of global output.
Some member states, such as Egypt, receive military aid from the United States, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hosts American military bases.
Russian officials have already deemed the three-day summit a great success, with Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov saying 36 countries have confirmed their participation and 24 will send representatives. .
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Russia is also calling on more countries to join an alternative payment system to SWIFT, which Western countries have used to sanction Russian officials.
While Russia is pushing an anti-Western agenda at the summit, member states such as Brazil, India and South Africa want a less combative stance. They believe this alliance should be used to coordinate international institutions to meet the needs of the Global South. They believe they can work to reform the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to meet the needs of developing countries.
President Putin shook hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during talks on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan. (Alexander Zemlyanichenko/Pool via Reuters)
Creating an alternative to SWIFT would require BRICS-based currencies and financial institutions to conduct international business, but so far BRICS members have not presented clear plans to replace the dollar.
In his speech at the summit, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said BRICS must act as more than a “dialogue club,” and 15 years after the alliance was founded, many of its goals remain unfulfilled. He said he had not.
He weighed in on Western countries’ increasingly frequent sanctions threats.
He said: “More than 30 years after the collapse of the bipolar system, it has become increasingly clear from the Western perspective that peace, democracy, prosperity and development can only be achieved through nationally defined paths.” ” he said.
“This exclusive outlook has led to an increase in violence, war, and terrorism on the one hand, and to the unprecedented use of economic and political sanctions on the other.”
President Putin shook hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during talks on the sidelines of the BRICS summit. (Alexander Zemlyanichenko/Pool via Reuters)
Dollar assets now account for about 59% of global foreign exchange reserves, down from 70% in 1999.
Former President Donald Trump claimed that losing the dollar as the world currency would be like “losing a war” and promised to impose “100% tariffs” on countries that despise the dollar.
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“I was using sanctions, putting them on and taking them off as fast as I could. Ultimately, sanctions kill your dollar, it kills everything the dollar stands for. And we think it’s the world “I think it’s important that if we lose the dollar as the world currency, we’re going to lose the war,” he said in New York in September. Speaking at the Economic Club.
“Then we will become a third world country. We will lose Russia. China is trying to make its currency the dominant currency.”
