At 11:26PM, Sunday night, July 6, I received a text from my producers.
I was in Rio de Janeiro, covering the BRICS summit for an international news agency. They wanted me to go live. The summit was only halfway done, but US President Donald Trump had already posted on Truth Social in retaliation.
“Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff,” he wrote. “There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Why was the president of the most powerful nation in the world worried about a group of a dozen countries meeting in Brazil? Because that bloc comprises some of the most powerful developing nations in the world, including Trump adversaries like China—but also Iran, who joined BRICS last year as a partner member, alongside Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates. And because, as the world seems to be unraveling, the BRICS group is moving to reform world governance and global trade. And they likely have the best chance of doing it.
“I can affirm that if they keep with the agenda, and they implement what they put down on paper, we don’t see any block in the world that’s pushing much more than the BRICS,” Maureen Santos, the coordinator of the BRICS Policy Center’s Socio-Environmental Platform, told me.
The Summit
“For the fourth time, Brazil is hosting a BRICS Summit,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to kick off the summit on Sunday morning, “Of all the summits, this one is taking place in the most adverse global scenario. The UN turned 80 on June 26, and we have witnessed an unparalleled collapse of multilateralism.”
In Lula’s 10-minute opening speech, he denounced the “genocide” in Gaza and called for a two-state solution. He condemned the “violations of Iran’s territorial integrity” and reminded those in attendance that the BRICS was the heir of the non-aligned movement—the group of 121 nations that did not align with neither the US nor Russia during the Cold War.
These sentiments were included in the final “BRICS Leader’s Declaration,” which was released on Sunday July 6—the first day of the summit—before Trump’s threats over social media. The document didn’t explicitly mention the United States, but it rejected “unilateral protectionist measures” and condemned the violence in Gaza and Iran.
Among the 126 final resolutions in the document were agreements on promoting peace, strengthening cooperation on health and sustainable development, combating climate change, battling hunger, reforming global governance and ensuring equal access to—and global regulation of artificial intelligence.
“A collective global effort is needed to establish an AI governance that upholds our shared values, addresses risks, builds trust, and ensures broad and inclusive international collaboration and access, in accordance with sovereign laws,” read the document. The common theme across all these issues was how to build a more equitable global system.
The leaders were vocal about a need to overhaul the global system of governance, where the United States, the EU, and the G7 countries are at the top, and everyone else is picking up the scraps.
The BRICS leaders called in the declaration for a “comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including its Security Council, with a view to making it more democratic, representative, effective and efficient.”
“They are demanding multipolarity—financial, cultural, and political multipolarity. And the United States is fighting to maintain a hegemony that is in crisis. It’s US hegemony that is in crisis. And in that sense, the BRICS represents a threat to the US.”
“The BRICS represents a proposal against hegemony,” BRICS Policy Center Director Marta Fernandez told me at a cafe in Rio de Janeiro. “They are demanding multipolarity—financial, cultural, and political multipolarity. And the United States is fighting to maintain a hegemony that is in crisis. It’s US hegemony that is in crisis. And in that sense, the BRICS represents a threat to the US.”
Probably the top issue of concern for the US president are calls to democratize the currency used in trade amongst BRICS countries. Currently, more than half of global transactions are in the US dollar. De-dollarization, or moving away from the US dollar as the top reserve currency, would mean a huge hit for the United States and a big win for democratizing global trade and finance.
Shortly after winning the November 2024 presidential elections, Trump fired off a warning to the BRICS countries.
“We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “There is no chance that BRICS will replace the US dollar in international trade, or anywhere else, and any country that tries should say hello to tariffs, and goodbye to America!”
The BRICS nations were not deterred. In the final declaration they called for the increased use of “local currencies,” and the incorporation of the use of these currencies in the BRICS interbank system in order to “facilitate and expand innovative financial practices” and “support greater trade and investment flows.” The head of the BRICS New Development Bank, former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff announced last week that already a quarter of the bank’s lending portfolio was in local currencies and that they are looking to hit 30% by next year.
“Obviously, the big BRICS demand is for monetary multipolarity, which goes against the hegemony of the dollar, which has become the reserve currency since World War II,” says Fernandez. “So it’s a direct attack on this system, controlled by the dollar.”
BRICS has many challenges, in part due to the diverse makeup of the cultures, countries, and governments that make up the eclectic, yet powerful international alliance.
The group is not looking to upend the global capitalist system. It’s not proposing socialism. The BRICS countries aren’t going to usher in revolutionary change. But they are pushing to alter the balance of power in the world to move from the hegemony of the United States and the European powers toward something more equal.
“Can anyone tell me why India can’t be included in the UN Security Council? Or a country like Brazil? Or Mexico?” Lula said during the summit. “Or Nigeria or Ethiopia, which has a population of just over 120 million people, or Egypt, which has over 100 million, or South Africa? Why not? There’s no reason why.”
Currently only China, France, Russia, the UK, and the United States have veto power in the Security Council. This structure was implemented at the end of World War II and has remained in place ever since—something the BRICS countries say has to change.
BRICS Popular Council
The BRICS summit did not occur in a vacuum. Representatives say that ahead of the meeting, negotiators from the BRICS countries—which they call “sherpas”—met hundreds of times over the last year to come to agreement on such a wide range of topics.
This past year also saw the creation of a new Popular Council. The council was created last year as a space for grassroots groups to contribute to the BRICS agenda, policies, and future. Representatives from 120 groups from across the BRICS countries met in the months leading up to the summit.
“The majority of the BRICS countries, right now, are very conservative and some of them even undemocratic and don’t have the civil space inside their countries. So bringing this agenda for the BRICS, it’s pushing the other countries to open space for civil society.”
“The existence of this Popular Council is amazing,” said Santos. “Because you know that the majority of the BRICS countries, right now, are very conservative and some of them even undemocratic and don’t have the civil space inside their countries. So bringing this agenda for the BRICS, it’s pushing the other countries to open space for civil society.”
For two days before the official BRICS summit, members of social movements, civil society, and academia from across the BRICS countries met in a large hall in Carlos Gomes Theater, in downtown Rio de Janeiro, for the Popular Council Forum.
Colorful banners from diverse social and labor movements, including Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), were laid out in front of the stage, where panels were held throughout the day.
They delivered their recommendations to BRICS leaders on Sunday. Delegates of the Popular Council presented their findings, analysis and process during a press conference following the Popular Council forum.
Raymond Matlala, from the BRICS Youth Association of South Africa, said, “What I like about BRICS and why I think BRICS is so appealing to the global majority, the Global South is the principles of BRICS, the mutual respect. The people are leveled. No one comes with superior power. It’s also the respect of one country’s sovereignty. BRICS does not enter in domestic issues.”
How will BRICS respond to Trump?
Early on Monday morning, I responded to the text from my producers and went live at both 1AM and 2AM.
The presenter asked me how BRICS would respond to Trump’s late-night threat over social media. I said it was unclear, but I was sure it was not going to make them change course.
At a press conference the next day, following the close of the summit, Lula stood at a microphone in front of the hall in white shirt and a black suit. Blue carpeted floors. Blue wall behind him, “BRICS – Brasil 2025″ written across it. Journalists packed in rows of chairs before him. Camera shutters clicking. Cold air pumped into the room from two huge air conditioning units.
The first three questions were variations on the same theme: How would BRICS respond?
The answer: They wouldn’t. They didn’t have to.
“The world has changed. We don’t want an emperor,” said Lula, referring to Trump. “We are sovereign countries.” He said Trump’s threat of raising tariffs on BRICS countries wasn’t brought up at all during their meetings that day. It was not even an issue.
“At the moment the United States declares ‘America First,’ the BRICS are saying ‘we all come first,’”
This is a subtle, but important point. Trump wants to be the center of attention. That’s how he derails and wins debates, with ever-more shocking statements, actions, decrees, and threats. In Trump’s world, the United States—backed by the US dollar and the US military—should be first, with the rest of the countries of the world revolving around it. That is exactly what the BRICS countries want to change. And the more Trump pushes, the more they are going to look the other way.
“At the moment the United States declares ‘America First,’ the BRICS are saying ‘we all come first,’” international relations analyst Pedro Costa Junior told me at the summit. “The Global South comes first. The community comes first. Not for one. But for everyone.”
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.