USA
Source: www.project-syndicate.org


His rhetoric notwithstanding, US President Donald Trump is going easy on China and Russia, while pushing away Brazil, India, South Africa, and America’s fellow G7 members. Does he want to give the BRICS+ group of major emerging economies and others an even stronger reason to develop alternatives to the Western-dominated order?

LONDON – Much about life under US President Donald Trump’s second administration is mystifying and strange, not least his treatment of the BRICS+ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, plus five newer entrants) and the risk the group poses to American power and influence. Judging by his words, Trump seems to want to stop the bloc of major emerging economies from challenging the US-led global-governance system. But judging by his actions, one could be forgiven for thinking that he wants to help it pursue its global ambitions.

Consider Trump’s bilateral treatment of the various BRICS countries. Compared to many others who have been targeted in his global trade war, he has been rather gentle with China and Russia – two non-democratic regimes whose “strongman” leaders he genuinely admires. True, his light touch may reflect a reluctance to trigger economically ruinous responses from markets or other governments. Following his “Liberation Day” tariffs, which China responded to in kind while also suspending exports of rare earths, US markets and the dollar swooned, and yields on US government debt spiked.
But Trump has been far less sparing of others, and this has produced some rather odd outcomes. Why is he being so aggressive toward traditionally friendly countries like Switzerland? Smaller economies hardly matter for the overall US trade balance that he claims to care about, and the arbitrary abuse that they are suffering will encourage others to reduce their dependence on the US market over the long term.

Then there is Russia. While Trump occasionally threatens and chastises President Vladimir Putin, he more often seems eager to relax Western sanctions, normalize US-Russian relations, and pursue business deals with the Kremlin. By contrast, he has lashed out at Brazil in response to its prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro. But while Latin America’s largest country now faces a 50% tariff on its exports to the United States, it is less exposed to trade overall. Moreover, the trade that it does rely on is mostly with China, its fellow BRICS member.

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India, too, has come in for especially harsh treatment, including a 50% tariff on its exports to the US. Soon after Trump’s inauguration, many suggested that India would be near the top of the list for a new trade deal, given Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s past friendliness with Trump. But India has always been rather independent diplomatically, and its purchases of Russian crude oil apparently frustrated Trump, given his efforts to orchestrate a quick end to the war in Ukraine.

Alienating the world’s most populous country is risky, though. If the US is hoping to contain China, it would help to maintain a close partnership with India. Following Trump’s friendly visit with a top Pakistani military official, India may now be more tempted to respond positively to Chinese overtures. This month, Modi is paying his first visit to China in seven years.

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As I have argued before, if only China and India could find a way to look past their differences and develop stronger ties, that would be a game-changer for the BRICS+, not to mention for Asian and even global trade. America’s relevance would wane, and more countries would grow dependent on Asia’s two giants.

It is worth remembering the recent G7 summit in Canada, where Trump mused that it had been a mistake to remove Russia from the group following its initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, and that such gatherings should also probably include China. As I noted at the time, his comments made a good deal of sense. I made a similar point in my original 2001 BRIC paper, where I suggested that the G8, which then included Russia, should include China, Brazil, and India, and that its European wing should be consolidated to just the European Union (rather than having separate memberships for France, Germany, and Italy).

I would still welcome such changes today. Unfortunately, Trump is doing the opposite: going easy on China and Russia while he pushes away Brazil, India, South Africa, and America’s fellow G7 members. In doing so, he is giving the BRICS+ and others an even stronger reason to develop alternatives to the Western-led international order.

What today’s world needs is an improved G20, with seats at the table for the most important economies and emerging powers. As it happens, the US is due to host the G20 in 2026. It is a perfect opportunity for Trump to demonstrate global leadership. Whether he is capable of doing so is another matter.

Russia
Source: mid.ru

On August 19, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a telephone conversation with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federative Republic of Brazil Mauro Vieira.

During the conversation, the parties touched on some issues of interaction within BRICS. Brazil’s chairmanship in BRICS in 2025, including the outcomes of the 17th summit in Rio de Janeiro (July 6 – 7) were highly appreciated. The ministers have reaffirmed their intention to strengthen interaction within BRICS, including in the operation of the New Development Bank, at the United Nations and other international platforms.

Mauro Vieira expressed his support to the joint activities of Moscow and Washington in establishing requisite conditions for achieving a stable settlement of the Ukraine crisis.

The ministers also discussed some items on the Russian-Brazilian agenda and the schedule of contacts until the end of 2025.

USA
Source: eir.news

There are three predictable outcomes of Trump’s aggressive crypto-tariff policy. I use the phrase “crypto-tariff” advisedly, because the imposition of sky-high tariffs left and right, especially on targeted BRICS countries, goes hand in hand with the frenzied expansion of cryptocurrencies to bail out the $2 quadrillion speculative bubble that is like a giant cancer in the trans-Atlantic financial system. The imposition of tariffs will loot the physical economies of the Global South and force huge flows of funds to the financial centers of the West (Wall Street and the City of London); and the crypto explosion is meant to prop up the unpayable financial bubble of those same centers. Note that the intellectual author of both policies is reportedly the current U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, who headed the leading financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald from 1990 to 2025. Cantor Fitzgerald is a major player in the crypto craze, and manages the reserve assets of Tether, by far the largest crypto stablecoin.

The three foreseeable results are:

1) There are going to be involuntary defaults and moratoria on foreign debt payments by multiple countries in the Global South, because there will be sharp drops in their exports to the U.S. and other countries, and therefore their export revenues, as a result of the tariffs. The 20 BRICS countries (10 member and 10 partner nations) have a combined foreign debt of about $6 trillion—which is one important fuse, of many, that could ignite the $2 quadrillion financial bomb. With the wave of sovereign defaults, debtor countries will be pressured to accept agreements with the IMF, which will try to impose its hated austerity conditionalities. Victim nations will have to choose between going down with Wall Street and the City of London Titanic, or pursuing options independent of that Titanic, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the collective approach of the BRICS. Expect major global realignments as a result.

2) The Global South will start to significantly reorient its trade flows, increasing exports to countries that do not impose tariffs on it, and importing from other countries in the Global South and Global East which are also victims of the crypto-tariffs. Intra-BRICS trade will be particularly favored. We will see tectonic shifts in these physical international trade flows in the coming months and years, as profound as those seen in the process of global de-dollarization since the start of the war in Ukraine. One example of such a tectonic shift is the importation of oil by India (which relies on imports for 87% of its domestic consumption): prior to 2022, less than 1% of India’s oil imports came from Russia; by June 2025, the Russian share had risen to over 43%.

3) There is going to be a hyperinflationary explosion in the U.S. (and Europe), partly because of the impact of tariffs on consumer prices in the U.S., but more fundamentally because of the expected $100 trillion or so surge in cryptocurrencies between now and 2030, which many “experts” project will result from the policies adopted by the Trump administration.

With those three processes already underway, that leaves two crucial pending questions about how the world will respond to that emerging financial reality:

(A) Will the Global Majority nations finally make the decisions required to establish new institutions for the issuance of large amounts of productive credit, protected from the speculation of the dollar system? What will be the nature and scope of the New Investment Platforms (NIP) that Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed? What will be the role of the BRICS New Development Bank? In what currency will the new productive credit be issued? In short, will the Global Majority finally adopt a Hamiltonian credit system to replace the current bankrupt trans-Atlantic monetarist system?
(B) Will the countries of the Global North, such as the U.S., recognize that their self-interest as nations lies in cooperating with the BRICS, with the Global South, with the Belt and Road Initiative, for mutual benefit? Will they do so in time to avoid a thermonuclear war against Russia and China? Will the U.S. return to its own policy origins and once again adopt a Hamiltonian credit system to replace the current bankrupt monetarist system?

Fortunately, the answers to questions (A) and (B) above are not mutually exclusive or contradictory: there is a solution to the current crisis that is beneficial for both the North and the South. In fact, (A) is not possible without (B), and (B) is not possible without (A). A new international security and development architecture with those characteristics is both necessary and possible, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche has long argued.

To put the matter another way: If money were wealth, the law of the jungle (a zero-sum game) would in fact be scientifically correct, as the monetarists argue: my gain is your loss. Entropy prevails, and war is a certain outcome. But money is not wealth. True wealth comes from advances in the productive powers of labor as a result of man’s creativity, as Lyndon LaRouche proved, and for that reason the law of the jungle is scientifically false. We actually live in a universe that is not a zero-sum game, a world in which everyone can win. Anti-entropy prevails.

That is both the good news, and the task before us. We next turn to elaborate on the above points.

Sovereign Debt Defaults

Total global financial aggregates today total over $2 quadrillion. As Fig. 1 indicates, the lion’s share of that is financial derivatives, which EIR estimates rose to about $1.575 quadrillion at the end of 2024. The component of total world debt of all kinds was about $318 trillion and, within that category, total developing sector foreign debt was about $8.8 trillion.

The BRICS 20 nations accounted for about $5.0 trillion (56%) of that total. If we leave aside China’s $2.4 trillion foreign debt, which is arguably distinct from all the others, that leaves “only” $2.6 trillion in foreign debt of the other BRICS 20 nations.

It would be a mistake, however, to believe that the danger is minimal, since this $2.6 trillion is minuscule (a bit over 0.1%) compared to total global financial aggregates of $2 quadrillion. Actually, that $2.6 trillion functions as a fuse capable of igniting the entire $2 quadrillion explosive charge. In 2023, the developing sector as a whole had to pay $1.4 trillion in debt service payments (both interest and principal) on its debt of $8.8 trillion, of which $406 billion was interest payments. This was a shocking 30% increase over the amount of interest paid in 2022—in part due to soaring interest rates.
Fig. 2 shows the total debt and debt service payments (as a percentage of exports) of five select, representative BRICS countries. As can be seen, that debt service ratio climbs as high as 30% in the case of Egypt. This indicates an extreme vulnerability to default, as reductions of export earnings—as will unquestionably occur as a result of the Trump tariffs—will cut into the ability to service the debt.

Shifting Trade Patterns

Fig. 3 shows the U.S. tariff levels being applied (as of August 2025) to each of the indicated five BRICS nations, which range up to 50%, which is the case for India and Brazil—which together owe over $1 trillion in foreign debt. The table also shows the share of each country’s exports going to the U.S., as compared to its exports shipped to other BRICS nations. In all cases, those five nations export substantially more to other BRICS nations than they do to the U.S. The weighted average of all five is: 10% of their exports goes to the U.S. (where they face a weighted average tariff of a stunning 42%); 25% of their exports goes intra-BRICS.

Moreover, that spread has been widening over recent years, and it can be expected to do so at an accelerating rate as the Trump tariffs take hold. This also explains why there is growing discussion in the BRICS about forming a BRICS customs union, which would have uniformly low (or zero) tariffs intra-BRICS, with higher coordinated external tariffs outside the BRICS customs union.

None of this should come as a surprise. Today’s ten BRICS member states accounted for only 11% of total world exports back in 2001; today they account for about 25% of the world total.

But it is not only BRICS exports which will be radically shifting. Imports of products which are critical to each nation’s physical economy can be matters of life and death if they are cut off, and detailed studies and intense scrutiny of those specifics are now underway in most, if not all, BRICS nations. They are asking themselves questions such as:

What happens if we are subjected to full economic warfare and embargoes, like Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and others have seen? How do we batten down the hatches if we are forced to adopt the equivalent of a war economy, as Russia had to do? These nations are looking at their national bill of materials for survival under conditions of such economic warfare. Are we self-sufficient in food and energy? If not, where can we buy grain and oil? What about steel, cement, fertilizer, tractors, and all-important machine tools and other high-tech capital goods? Who will help us build high-speed railroads, ports and dams? What can we gear up to produce ourselves over the next 5-10 years? Who else in the BRICS or other friendly nations can we rely on for help, technology transfer, and win-win trade?

Hyperinflation

It’s no secret that the Trump tariffs will translate into reduced U.S. imports, combined with the transfer of a large part (if not all) of the increased price of the remaining imported items onto the backs of U.S. consumers. But that will only be a minor component of coming sharp increases in prices, which will happen principally as a result of financial asset inflation unleashed by the planned flooding of the international financial system with some $100-200 trillion in worthless cryptocurrency over the next five years, as is widely forecast.

It is this crypto feature which also puts the lie to the oft-repeated mantra—a favorite of Donald Trump’s economic team—that tariffs will not only bring billions of dollars in revenue to the U.S. Treasury, but they will also lead to a rejuvenation of American industry, as the U.S. shifts to produce domestically what is now being imported.

Those who believe and retail this argument are either fools or liars—or both. First, there are many things that the U.S. is simply physically incapable of producing at this point, thanks to a half-century of aggressive deindustrialization policies at the hands of Wall Street and the City of London. We can’t build high-speed rail. We no longer produce machine tools at the needed scale. Our skilled labor force is aging and dying off. And on and on.

From a policy standpoint, the only way tariffs can help lead to industrialization is if they are coupled with a policy of massive productive credit generation—as was the case with Alexander Hamilton’s design of the American System. But there is no such credit policy in the U.S. today—exactly the opposite is the case. Of the $27 trillion in cumulative Quantitative Easing (QE) pumped into the trans-Atlantic system between 2008 and 2021, supposedly to stop the 2008 financial meltdown by providing fresh funds to banks so they could lend, exactly zero ($0.00) was used for productive investment. It all went to try to bail out the $2 quadrillion speculative bubble.

As Fig. 4 shows, QE had pretty much run its course as of about 2021, and an urgent financier-led drive was launched to pump new trillions of funny-money into the system, in the form of worthless, privately issued cryptocurrency (including so-called stablecoins)—up to $100 or even $200 trillion in new monetary assets by the year 2030, according to a number of sources, as Fig. 5 shows.
This will again be channeled entirely to feed the speculative bubble and further inflate it, with zero deployed for increasing physical economic productivity. Hence, hyperinflation. To think that this approach will solve our economic crisis is like loading a giant financial bazooka with $100 trillion, pouring concrete down its barrel so it can’t possibly go to productive investment, and then firing away.
Today’s promoters of crypto-tariffs are no smarter than Wile E. Coyote.

The LaRouche Action Plan

It is a distinct possibility that Washington’s crypto-tariff policy will backfire in ways that its proponents never imagined. Celso Amorim, the top international adviser to Brazilian President Lula da Silva, stated matter-of-factly that if Brazil can’t sell to the U.S., it will see if other markets, such as China, are available. President Lula himself stated that he would reach out to his Chinese and Indian counterparts, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, followed by other leaders. “I’m going to try to discuss with them about how each one is doing in this situation, what the implications are for each country, so we can make a decision…. There is no coordination among the BRICS yet, but there will be.”
The Indian government is also not amused by the 50% tariff placed on their exports to the U.S. That country’s Ministry of External Affairs warned: “It is therefore extremely unfortunate that the U.S. should choose to impose additional tariffs on India.… India will take all actions necessary to protect its national interests.” And there are further extensive discussions underway among the BRICS nations.

The BRICS 20 nations are well aware of the fact that they together represent 54% of the world’s population, and that they are strong—taken together—in other key physical economic parameters: 52% of global wheat production; 38% of oil; and nearly 75% of coal and steel (see Fig. 6). They are also aware that they can trade with each other using their own national currencies, rather than the toxic, speculation-ridden dollar, and they are increasingly doing just that. And they are studying technical mechanisms for establishing a unified clearing house and settlements system for their non-dollar trade.

The crucial, missing element—to date—is how to create new credit-issuing institutions that can provide massive flows of productive credit, while keeping those flows fully segregated from the $2 quadrillion speculative cancer. A new common unit of account or currency is needed as the vehicle for such credit flows, but this in no way replaces the proper ongoing role of the sovereign national currencies of the participating nations. In other words, the model of what needs to be done is emphatically not that of the European Union’s euro. As this author previously wrote in a 2023 article “Some LaRouche Essentials for Transition to a New International Financial System:”
There are three, central criteria that the new system and its currency must meet:1) Total separation between the new currency and participating national currencies, on the one side, and the predatory, toxic dollar on the other, i.e., no free convertibility between them. Exchange and capital controls become essential tools to achieve that result. For the United States, this means a return to Glass-Steagall, with its strict separation between productive credit and speculative activity.2) A fixed exchange-rate relationship between and among those participating national currencies and the new currency. Floating exchange rates have been a tool of financial speculation since August 1971, and they are anathema to long-term trade and investment cooperation among sovereign nations.3) Productive credit must be issued in that new currency to finance great development projects, with a heavy emphasis on science and advanced technologies, in and among participating nations, to quickly boost the physical economies and thereby provide the only possible solid backing for the value and stability of the new currency. Think Alexander Hamilton.

Those fundamentals still apply today, as the Global Majority deliberates over Putin’s New Investment Platforms and the needed role of the BRICS New Development Bank.

Finally, statesmen of the BRICS nations and the Global Majority must actively appeal to the United States and Europe, especially to their more thoughtful political leaders and movements, to join this win-win approach, and help make it clear that cooperation, not confrontation, is the best option for all parties involved. Crypto-tariffs may be the order of the day in Washington, but the voice of Alexander Hamilton—and of Lincoln, and FDR, and Lyndon LaRouche—has by no means been silenced, as the United States approaches its 250th anniversary.

Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org

Revisiting the issue of BRICS institutionalization

The challenges to BRICS posed by higher US tariffs have reignited discussions on the expediency of the bloc’s greater institutionalization in order to muster a coordinated trade response. Attempts to coordinate a common response are taking place after the 2025 BRICS summit, when the main policy focus of Brazil, a country that holds the BRICS presidency in 2025, has shifted towards the COP30 conference to be held in November 2025. We believe a more concerted effort towards institutionalization is likely to be undertaken in the next several years during the BRICS presidencies of India (2026) and then China (2027).

Throughout the past decade, while BRICS institutionalization has been actively discussed, it has not been pursued vigorously due to concerns over excessive rigidity and bureaucratization of the bloc’s operations. Indeed, in platforms such as the G7 and the G20 (that some observers use as benchmarks for BRICS at the global level) coordination is mostly conducted by the bloc’s rotating presidency. There may be reasons now why a departure from the patterns observed in the G20 and the G7 may be underway in the case of BRICS – the key trajectories of BRICS institutionalization in our view include the following:

• Developing the already existing institutional framework: expanding the operations of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and launching full-fledged operations of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA)
• Creating new institutional mechanisms that are to support the economic cooperation among BRICS economies such as the BRICS Multilateral Guarantees (BMG) initiative proposed by Brazil and approved by the BRICS summit in Rio in 2025
• Creating formal mechanisms of policy continuity within BRICS via launching a Troika mechanism that is represented by the coordination among the previous year’s, the current year’s, and future year’s presidencies
• Creating a BRICS Secretariat and BRICS Headquarters that operate continuously and represent BRICS in international forums

My earlier line of reasoning was that before resorting to institutionalization BRICS had to exhaust to the degree possible all the available options in building platforms and networks that did not require any apparatus, bureaucracy or rigid coordination[1]. In particular, platforms formed by the regional development banks of BRICS+ economies or the platforms of the national Sovereign Wealth Funds of BRICS members could all be launched with the coordination of existing institutional mechanisms such as NDB. In reality, the BRICS progression towards forming such mechanisms turned out to be sluggish, with institutionalization now likely to be seen as a factor that could actually facilitate a speedy creation of these and other cooperative platforms.

Furthermore, global economic conditions have changed so dramatically that an accelerated move towards institutionalization appears to be one of the key options for BRICS in building their capability to muster a coordinated response to intensifying external shocks. Perhaps one of the key factors that changes the outlook on institutionalization within BRICS is the recent escalation in BRICS trade tensions with the US and the lack of a swift coordinated response in the bloc’s trade policy. For the latter to advance materially, BRICS may need to create a Secretariat/Commission that would expedite the creation of a common BRICS/BRICS+ platform within the WTO and that could work with the BRICS Presidency as well as possibly the BRICS Troika (once it is formed) in conducting trade negotiations with countries and regional blocs across the world economy.

The momentum within BRICS is already shifting in the direction of greater institutionalization. Back in 2024 the Final Declaration of the Kazan summit referred to the institutionalization process as one of the key development tracks for BRICS (para 5 of the Declaration)[2] – a trend that was reinforced in the Final Declaration of the BRICS summit in Rio in 2025[3]. The Rio Declaration also refers to the steps undertaken during Brazil’s Presidency to improve the operation of such institutional mechanisms as the BRICS CRA as well as to launch the BRICS Multilateral Guarantees (BMG) initiative (para 48)[4]. Furthermore, some of the tracks of BRICS cooperation are already featuring the use of the Troika mechanism – in particular, the Youth Policy track envisages the creation of a Troika mechanism as stated in the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Youth Affairs (July 2025)[5].

Overall, given the developments so far in 2025, the trend towards greater institutionalization of the BRICS bloc is likely to pick up pace. We expect greater momentum in this direction to be observed next year during India’s chairmanship in BRICS, with limited scope for progress in the remainder of this year. The focus of BRICS institutionalization efforts is likely to prioritize such areas of economic cooperation as trade policy, where most of the challenges to BRICS as a bloc are emerging in recent periods and are likely to continue to loom large in the next several years.

[1] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/institutionalizing-brics-a-treacherous-path/
[2] https://dirco.gov.za/xvi-brics-summit-kazan-declaration-strengthening-multilateralism-for-just-global-development-and-security-kazan-russian-federation-23-october-2024/
[3] https://dirco.gov.za/rio-de-janeiro-declaration-strengthening-global-south-cooperation-for-a-more-inclusive-and-sustainable-governance-rio-de-janeiro-brazil-6-july-2025/
[4] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/brics-2025-summit-declaration-unveiled/
[5] http://brics.br/pt-br/noticias/em-uma-das-maiores-reunioes-do-ano-juventude-do-brics-avanca-em-temas-de-cooperacao/2506_brics-memorandum-of-understanding-on-cooperation-in-youth-affair-between.pdf/

Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org


With the headwinds facing the BRICS intensifying to an unprecedented degree this year, the bloc is exploring the potential modalities of a joint response to the challenges of rising protectionism and risks of economic slowdown. At the same time, the global economic backdrop is becoming increasingly precarious, with projections for growth in the world economy scaled down by international organizations – the IMF projects global growth at 3% in 2025 (vs. an estimate of 3.3% in the beginning of this year), well below the average of 3.7% in the 2000-2019 period[1]. At this critical juncture for the world economy, the BRICS could explore the potential modalities of a coordinated stimulus that would support growth across the Global South and the broader world economy via an array of policy measures, including mutual trade liberalization.

Greater policy coordination, particularly in the macroeconomic policy sphere has been one of our key focus areas in the past several years, with calls to explore the modalities of joint economic stimulus being raised back in 2024[2]. The current conditions in the world economy are rendering such calls even more topical and pressing. Indeed, as of mid-2025 nearly all BRICS-5 economies are experiencing a slowdown in 2025 compared to 2024 – for Brazil growth is projected by the IMF to decline from 3.4% in 2024 to 2.3% in 2025; for China the corresponding figures for 2024 and 2025 are 5.0% and 4.8%; India’s economy is expected to decelerate from a growth of 6.4% in 2024 to 6.3% in 2025; for South Africa growth is to reach 1% after similar low growth performance in 2024, while in Russia after growth rates of 4.3% in 2024, GDP is set to post a rise of 0.9% in 2025[3]. All these estimates arguably do not fully take into account the recent escalation in US pressure on BRICS economies in the trade sphere.

On the monetary policy side the conditions for greater stimulus appear to be largely aligned across the BRICS-5 economies, where in some of the cases (Russia, Brazil) policy rates have peaked at long-time highs. In Russia, the onset of the rate reduction cycle this year has already resulted in the key policy rate being brought down from 21% in April to 18% in July, which is likely to be followed by further easing in view of the gradual moderation in inflationary pressures (8.8% in July after nearly 10% in May 2025)[4]. Brazil’s Central Bank left the policy rate unchanged at a high of 15% in July 2025, with recent inflation figures pointing to a deceleration in price growth[5]. An important factor in terms of the timing of the BRICS monetary stimulus is the increasing possibility of US rate cuts that are expected by the markets later this year[6], which should create more scope for the monetary easing in emerging markets.

This year also presents a unique opportunity to render BRICS economic policy coordination more geared towards green and sustainable development as South Africa (a BRICS member) is chairing the G20 forum, while Brazil holds the presidency in BRICS as well as the COP conference. One of the ways to achieve this would be to consolidate the COP commitments for BRICS as well as the G20 economies and express them in terms of the “green economic stimulus” that they deliver to the global economy as part of a broader range of measures directed at boosting global economic growth. In other words, BRICS as a bloc led by its two core members, South Africa and Brazil (both members of the G20 Troika), could coordinate the incorporation of the COP commitments and initiatives into a “green stimulus” for the Global South and the world economy.

The modalities of coordinated stimulus undertaken by BRICS could include a wide array of measures, ranging from structural measures to fiscal and monetary policy measures, with the resulting BRICS stimulus package potentially encompassing:

• Trade liberalization: apart from the measures that we mentioned recently[7] such as the formation of a bloc within the WTO and the creation of a platform for regional integration arrangements, there may be the simpler route of exchanging import tariff reductions of 5-10% within the BRICS/BRICS+ circle (this, however, may still call for coordination among the respective regional integration arrangements that in many cases are in charge of national trade policies)
• An inventory of barriers in South-South trade (particularly among the core BRICS economies), with a discussion on which of these restrictions are to be eliminated
• Structural measures: easing of conditions for mutual investment among BRICS economies; measures to expand technological exchange to boost productivity growth; measures to liberalize labor migration flows to relieve labor shortages in some of the BRICS core economies
• Monetary stimulus: it does not necessarily have to rely exclusively on the reduction in the key policy rate, but may also involve a reduction in reserve requirements or other monetary policy measures;
• Fiscal policy stimulus: in line with earlier such efforts in China and some of the leading advanced economies, the composition of the fiscal stimulus should target those segments that may deliver the highest returns in terms of productivity growth (digital economy), while also according due priority to the support household consumption and the social safety net.

In terms of the sources of financing, the effects of budget spending could be amplified via investment from the development institutions and investment platforms across BRICS+. The latter may include the financing from the New Development Bank, the regional development banks, the regional financing arrangements (RFAs), the national development banks as well as the Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) of BRICS economies. There may also be contributions coming from the BRICS CRA and the BRICS Multilateral Guarantee (BMG) initiative once these platforms are fully operational.

The propagation of such a stimulus across not just the BRICS core, but also the BRICS+ circle could be reinforced via the participation of regional integration arrangements and regional development institutions. Such a BRICS coordinated stimulus would then be superior to the G20 stimuli that have been undertaken back in 2008 and 2020 without the significant employment of such a regional multiplier. Another consideration is to amplify the positive spillovers from the BRICS stimulus to global demand – for example, the trade liberalization measures could be rendered open-ended with respect to other economies and regional blocs in case such trade liberalization is reciprocated. This in turn has the potential to also render the spillovers to global demand stronger from the monetary and fiscal policy stimuli that “leak” to the rest of the globe via higher imports.

The implementation of the BRICS stimulus would also need to be phased, with the first stages being reserved for trade liberalization, followed by coordination in the macroeconomic policy mix of monetary and fiscal policies, with further stimuli to come at later stages via coordinated structural measures. Greater reliance on the co-financing of projects from the New Development Bank and regional development institutions may be frontloaded within the package, with greater financing coming from the BRICS CRA and the BRICS Multilateral Guarantee (BMG) in the later stages of the stimulus package implementation as these two financing instruments are yet to be fully developed.

There are undoubtedly significant constraints and limitations that BRICS economies face in attempting to roll out a joint economic stimulus package. One key barrier is the lack of experience in BRICS/BRICS+ macroeconomic policy coordination. On the fiscal side, there are tangible constraints for launching a stimulus due to high fiscal gaps and debt levels – Brazil is projected by the IMF to register public debt (general government gross debt) levels of 91.6% of GDP by the end of 2025 and close to 99% of GDP by 2029[8]. In trade, there is yet no BRICS+ platform for regional integration arrangements or a bloc within the WTO – these should be seen as a pre-condition for policy coordination in the sphere of international trade. Nonetheless, even simulation exercises of the potential modalities and scenarios of coordinated stimulus conducted in the context of current unfavorable conditions would go a long way towards rendering BRICS economies more prepared in jointly dealing with the next waves of global economic adversity.

On the whole, the BRICS stimulus will need to focus not only on addressing the near-term needs to boost growth, but also on correcting some of the longer term imbalances. In particular, the stimulus will need to address the issue of high levels of income inequality across BRICS via prioritizing programs of financial and digital inclusion. Priority also needs to be accorded to the support of SME activity as well as youth employment programs via active labour market policies. Perhaps one of the most promising segments of a BRICS economic stimulus package may be support for affordable housing – this may deliver important benefits in terms of improving social conditions, lowering inequality and generating some of the highest multiplier effects for growth (in line with the indications of input-output Leontieff tables[9]). There is also scope for integrating the COP and BRICS initiatives into a combined “green stimulus package”, to render future growth within BRICS+ more sustainable.

In the end, the response coming from BRICS to mounting protectionism in the world economy needs to go beyond the simple tit for tat arithmetic, but should rather seek a different, far broader ambition that strengthens BRICS credentials as an economic bloc that supports international economic organizations such as the WTO and that can be an effective driver of greater openness and economic stimulus during periods of increasing volatility and recessionary risks in the global economy. The current challenges faced by BRICS could be turned into an opportunity to forge greater cohesion and policy coordination. A coordinated stimulus exercise even if not implemented but only analyzed and discussed within the BRICS+ circle would prepare the groundwork for a more effective coordinated response to global challenges in the future.

[1] https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO. There is a question as to whether the IMF forecast for global growth fully incorporates the current volatility factor in international trade policy dynamics, including the possibility of some of the hastily concluded trade deals falling apart.
[2] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/the-brics-macroeconomic-policy-mix/; https://brics-plus-analytics.org/on-brics-policy-coordination/
[3] https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO
[4] https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/112722/#:~:text=According%20to%20Rosstat%20data%2C%20inflation,from%209.88%25%20to%209.4%25.
[5] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazils-inflation-undershoots-forecasts-july-amid-high-interest-rates-2025-08-12/
[6] https://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/dollar-drops-as-us-federal-reserve-chief-powell-points-to-possible-september-rate-cut/article69965443.ece
[7] https://brics-plus-analytics.org/a-coordinated-trade-response-from-brics/
[8] https://www.imf.org › 1braea2025001-source-pdf
[9] The role of construction as an employment provider : a world-wide input-output analysis / Christoph Ernst and Marianela Sarabia ; International Labour Office; Employment Policy Department, Employment and Labour Market Policies Branch. – Geneva: ILO, 2015 (Employment working paper ; No. 186)

Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics