A Bloc That Refuses to Stay Small
BRICS — the grouping originally formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — has undergone its most significant expansion in its history. With new members joining and a growing list of countries seeking partnership status, the bloc is reshaping how we think about multilateral institutions, economic influence, and the challenge to Western-led global governance.
Who Has Joined and Why It Matters
In 2024, the expanded BRICS+ formally welcomed Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Several more nations, including Argentina (which subsequently withdrew following a change of government), Indonesia, and others, have expressed varying levels of interest.
The significance of this expansion goes beyond headcount:
- Energy: The inclusion of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran means a substantial portion of global oil and gas production is now represented within BRICS.
- Population: The expanded bloc represents a majority of the world's population.
- Economic weight: Collectively, BRICS+ nations account for a significant share of global GDP, though internal economic disparities remain enormous.
The De-Dollarisation Question
One of the most discussed — and contested — dimensions of BRICS is the ambition to reduce dependence on the US dollar in international trade. Leaders have spoken publicly about settlement mechanisms in national currencies and, more speculatively, a common BRICS currency.
Most economists view a BRICS currency as highly unlikely in the near to medium term. The bloc's members have deeply divergent monetary policies, inflation rates, and economic structures. However, bilateral trade in national currencies is already growing — particularly between China and Russia, and China and Gulf states — which represents a meaningful, if incremental, shift.
Is This an Anti-Western Alliance?
This framing oversimplifies a diverse grouping. India, for instance, maintains strong strategic and economic ties with the United States and is a member of the Quad security dialogue. Brazil's foreign policy has oscillated significantly across administrations. Many new members continue to trade extensively with Europe and the US.
A more accurate framing is that BRICS reflects a desire for strategic autonomy — the ability to engage with multiple power centres rather than being bound to a single geopolitical bloc. For many Global South nations, this is an attractive proposition regardless of ideological alignment.
The Institutional Challenge to the West
BRICS has its own development bank — the New Development Bank — which offers an alternative to IMF and World Bank financing, albeit at a much smaller scale. The bloc advocates for reform of international institutions, including greater voting weight for developing nations in the IMF.
These institutional ambitions are long-term projects, but they reflect a genuine and growing frustration among many nations with governance structures designed in the post-WWII era that have been slow to reflect the current distribution of global economic power.
What to Watch in the Coming Years
- Whether energy trade in non-dollar currencies scales meaningfully
- The internal coherence of the bloc — India-China tensions remain a structural fault line
- How Western institutions respond: adaptation versus resistance
- Whether BRICS develops credible alternatives to SWIFT or other financial infrastructure
BRICS is not a monolith, and its cohesion should not be overstated. But as a signal of a world growing less comfortable with a unipolar order, its expansion is one of the most important geopolitical stories of this decade.