The foreign ministers of BRICS member nations – and another 13 countries interested in collaborating with the anti-Western bloc – convened in Russia on Monday for a meeting outside of the confines of the BRICS annual summit to discuss, among other issues, ways to expand trade without the use of the U.S. dollar.
“The proactive work is underway on fulfillment of decisions of the Johannesburg summit of the last year, specifically as regards improvement of the international monetary system and development of a platform for payment in national currencies in mutual trade,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.
BRICS held its last annual summit in August in Johannesburg, South Africa, as that nation held the presidency of the organization in 2023. Russian strongman Vladimir Putin chose not to attend on that occasion, as South Africa is a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has an outstanding warrant out for Putin on charges of war crimes in Ukraine. Russia holds this year’s presidency and will host the official summit in the city of Kazan in October.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with fellow BRICS leaders pose for a photo with new BRICS members at the last day of the summit, held at the Sandton Convention Center in the Sandton district of Johannesburg, South Africa, on August 24, 2023. Included are Xi Jinping, China’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, and Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi (Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images).
The vast majority of international trade is conducted using the U.S. dollar, bolstering the strength of the American currency and leaving nations open to potential sanctions damage. Given the growing number of sanctions imposed on Russia and China is response to a litany of human rights abuses committed by their dictatorships, both countries have spearheaded efforts both in BRICS and beyond to “de-dollarize” their economies, ideally rendering them immune from sanctions.
“De-Dollarization” was a major topic of discussion at the 2023 BRICS summit, in the short term by replacing the dollar with the Chinese yuan or the Russian ruble. In the long term, however, BRICS representatives have suggested that the member nations of that coalition could create their own currency to protect its members from sanctions or any human rights requirements Western nations may demand.
“Why can’t an institution like the BRICS bank have a currency to finance trade relations between Brazil and China, between Brazil and all the other BRICS countries?” socialist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in April 2023. “Who decided that the dollar was the currency (for trade) after the end of the gold parity?”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left, shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping after a signing ceremony held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Friday, April 14, 2023 (Ken Ishii/Pool Photo via AP).
Brazil has independently sought to limit its trade in dollars, reaching an agreement with China to use the yuan for bilateral trade in March 2023.
Emphasizing BRICS’ disregard for human rights norms, the meeting on Monday opened with a moment of silence for late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who would have attended the summit. The two died alongside six others in a mysterious helicopter crash in May during a return trip from neighboring Azerbaijan. Raisi, a longtime prosecutor before ascending to the presidency, left a legacy of brutal persecution of suspected dissidents and is believed to have led the massacre of thousands of protesters.
Lavrov, the Russian top diplomat, then offered remarks aggressively condemning Western nations, ensuring the meeting’s tenor was combative against America and its allies.
“Recent international events have taken off the masks of those (the West) who until now had verbally claimed almost the exclusive right to define so-called universal values under the guise of a rules-based order,” Lavrov asserted, according to a translation by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency.
Ali Bagheri Kani, who replaced Amir-Abdollahian as Iran’s interim foreign minister, told reporters on Monday that BRICS was “the biggest international economic and trade organization that operates outside the framework of Western unilateralism.”
“The presence of the Islamic Republic of Iran in this organization is indicative of the position and importance of our country in the multilateral [world] system,” he asserted, according to Iran’s state-run PressTV propaganda outlet.
Putin foreshadowed the emphasis of distancing from the U.S. dollar in remarks on Friday at another event, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
“We’re observing a real race between countries to strengthen their sovereignty,” Putin said in a speech to the trade forum. “Countries that until recently acted as leaders of global development are trying with all their might, by hook or crook, to maintain their elusive role as hegemons.”
“Along the BRICS line, we’re working on developing an independent payment system not subject to political pressure, abuse and external sanctions interference,” he explained. “BRICS has a large potential for attracting new members.”
BRICS is a trade and security coalition originally uniting Russia, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa, which expanded in 2024 to include Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Iran. In its first major expansion announced in late 2023, BRICS also extended invitations to Argentina and Saudi Arabia. Argentina declined to join, while Saudi Arabia had appeared to accept the invitation but, as of February, had not fully completed the induction process.
Saudi Arabia sent a top official to Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, this week for the two-day BRICS meeting. Tass, the Russian news agency, included Saudi Arabia on the list of non-BRICS-member nations attending, as its representative is expected to join the talks on Tuesday, but described the country as a “full-fledged BRICS member.” Riyadh appears to be focusing more closely on a different event, a Saudi “Priority Summit in Latin America” beginning on Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, intended to expand Saudi economic influence in South America.
According to Tass, BRICS is currently in talks with about 30 countries interested in joining the bloc, supporting Putin’s claim that BRICS has “potential” for expansion. This week’s BRICS meeting will include representatives of 22 nations in total, according to Tass. The list of nonmember nations attending includes a rogue’s gallery of serial human rights abusers, such as Cuba, Belarus, Vietnam, Turkey, and Venezuela. The other nations sending envoys are Bahrain, Mauritania, Laos, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Thailand.