USA
Source: fortune.com


Brian Wong is an HKU-100 assistant professor and fellow at the Centre on Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong. 

The primary threat to BRICS isn’t Trump, NATO, or the West. Instead, it comes from within: That BRICS expands too quickly and becomes incohesive, and that it underdelivers on its promise to reform global governance.Per-Anders Pettersson—Getty Images

BRICS has come a long way since Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill thought it up in 2001. As of January, it now comprises ten countries: the original five of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and five new additions in Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.


As the postwar U.S.-led international order shows its cracks, it can be tempting to view BRICS as a potential pillar of a new world order. It has almost half of the world’s population, almost three-quarters of its rare earth minerals, and over a third of its crude oil.

In the eyes of its advocates, BRICS is the core of a new world order, where Western voices can no longer dictate the global agenda or serve as the only source of finance, technology, or expertise. It can serve as an avenue to find new markets, build new supply chains and hedge against a more protectionist White House.

BRICS is certainly spooking some in Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump has routinely threatened to impose 100% tariffs on BRICS+ countries if they move to develop their own currency. He’s also proposed 10% tariffs on countries that align themselves “with the anti-American policies of BRICS.” (Trump never followed through)

But the primary threat to BRICS isn’t Trump, NATO, or the West. Instead, it comes from within: That BRICS expands too quickly and becomes incohesive, and that it underdelivers on its promise to reform global governance.

Enlargement may look pretty on paper, but BRICS needs ground rules, enforcement, and even just a common message. The bloc must address some pressing internal issues if it’s going to maintain he strategic clout and momentum it’s gained over recent years.

First, it needs to manage deep internal rivalries, particularly China and India, its two largest members. The two have sought to set a floor under their relationship, since Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meetings in Kazan, Russia and Tianjin, China. Yet the relationship is still fraught with tension regarding longstanding territorial dispute; the most recent flare-up happened after an Indian citizen born in Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as its territory, was detained in Shanghai’s airport for 18 hours.

Second, BRICS needs to balance economic security with members’ political goals. Beijing may view BRICS as an effective way to expedite investments into projects in West Asia, Central Asia, and the Indian Ocean, yet India, long wary of the Belt and Road Initiative, is skeptical of this infrastructure expansion. Pakistan is keen to join the New Development Bank, the BRICS’s development finance institution. Yet with India as BRICS’s chair this year, it’s unlikely that Pakistan’s application will proceed smoothly, as New Delhi will be wary to endorse funding for its longtime rival.

Admittedly, BRICS was never meant to resolve all the disagreements between its members. Yet the organization has also missed several opportunities to genuinely advance cooperation between its members, outside of the structures set up by the West.

For example, the bloc established the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) to provide currency swaps during foreign-exchange shortages. Yet the CRA also stipulates that members must abide by IMF conditions if they want access to over 30% of total entitlements. Ironically, that pushed South Africa to opt for the more resourceful and flexible IMF over the CRA, when it needed to secure a controversial $4.3 billion loan in 2020.


In theory, BRICS’s flexibility should be an asset, allowing it to accept members from across the geopolitical spectrum. Yet without a way to coordinate governments, enforce regulations and punish compliance, the bloc is, fundamentally, toothless.

Without a clear remit or binding guidelines, these “teething problems” can snowball into something more substantial.

Optimists may hope that new members–like Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country and an emerging manufacturing and energy powerhouse–could broker relations between rival powers. But how willing will these “middle powers” be to untangle disagreements and strategic rivalries that have built over decades?

Then add the fact that many current and prospective BRICS nations–like Indonesia, India and the UAE–are constantly trying to court U.S. investment and bolster security partnerships. Brazil, which has butted heads with Washington since Trump started his second term yet faces a White House keen on doubling down on its strategic influence and leverage in Latin America, will be wary of committing fully to just one bloc.

And some members are beset by internal problems. If, under intense American pressure and the existing large-scale protests, Iran further destabilizes, this will certainly affect the passage of India- and China-bound oil through the Strait of Hormuz, epitomizing how one country’s problems can very quickly affect the entire group.


If BRICS is going to be more than just an acronym, members have to see themselves as partners in a collective enterprise. That, in turn, will come from developing and accepting common ground rules that can be enforced. Otherwise, BRICS’s unbridled enlargement could end up being its undoing.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

country
Source: valdaiclub.com



Values are now among the key forces shaping contemporary international affairs. As values increasingly take centre stage in geopolitical competition, the development of consensus on sovereign values shared by the World Majority is a must, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Oleg Barabanov.

What defines the particular characteristics of the contemporary moment in international relations is the global geopolitical fracture and polarization along the lines of the political West, on one side, and the global non-West and South on the other. Of key importance to the global agenda is the matter of strengthening solidarity among non-Western states—which make up the World Majority. The growing internal consolidation of institutional structures and procedural mechanisms of the World Majority is what forms the core of the only plausible and correct answer to the escalating pressure exerted by the political West against the Global South—pressure that intensified exceptionally during the presidency of Donald Trump. Among those structures and mechanisms, a special place belongs to BRICS—as well as the regional associations bringing together non-Western states and those of the Global South. 

The value factor is what assumes central importance when it comes to this issue. Often it is values, not just geopolitics or economic interests, that come to define the strategies states pursue on the global stage.

It is precisely values that increasingly exert a significant influence on the political will to make and implement this or that decision in international affairs. It would not be an overstatement to argue that contemporary geopolitical rivalries largely reflect clashes between values. It is well known that countries comprising the political West strive to endow their values with a universal and non-negotiable character.

Under such conditions, the World Majority must work out a kind of values-based response, a values-based alternative to the expansion of Western values. This task is of importance for each state belonging to the Global non-West and South. Yet, in today’s environment, what may be no less important—perhaps even more so—is coordinating the value policies of the World Majority as a whole: developing a platform that articulates shared values to serve as the foundation for common action and political will. Without it, solidarity will remain but a buzzword on a piece of paper—one that may be recycled from one declaration to the next, yet never implemented in practice.

Of no less importance, though, is that the pursuit of this policy remains grounded in the actual—indeed, the natural, one might even say primordial—values shared by the societies of the World Majority. Whatever shape the formulation of values might take, knocking them together “out of bits and bobs” won’t be of much help—in fact, doing so will make things even worse.

The importance of those tasks became clear in the year 2025 as well. Among the outcomes of the Trump presidency’s first turbulent year one could point out the abrupt intensification of the pressure exerted by the United States against the countries of the Global South. Almost every major developing country ended up finding itself a target of Trump’s attack. This applies to South Africa, which became a recipient of the harshest accusations made by the US president. It applies to Brazil, which deals with pressure on both the tariff and political fronts. It applies to China, India, and numerous other countries. Finally, it applies to the entirety of BRICS as an association—which Trump perceives as a major challenge to American global leadership.

This pressure also surfaced within the G20—the only major platform where countries of the Global non-West and South are represented alongside the political West. South Africa’s G20 presidency in 2025 became a target of Trump’s pressure. His open dismissal of the South African presidency led to the US represented at the lowest possible level at the G20 summit in South Africa, with the American delegation headed by the US Chargé d’Affaires to the country.

Even greater pressure was exerted by Trump against South Africa during preparations for the United States’ G20 presidency in 2026. Trump refused to invite South Africa to participate in the work of the G20 throughout the year of America’s presidency. Following the refusal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio released an official statement levelling accusations against South Africa, which served as a justification for not extending an invitation.

As we know, it was Poland that received an invitation to participate in the G20 in South Africa’s place under the US presidency. Aside from the fact that this decision will lead to a shift in the G20 balance of power between counties belonging to the political West and those of the Global non-West and South, its importance is reflected in another way. For the first time, a member state was barred from participating in the group’s work. Moreover, this was done not by consensus, but unilaterally by the presiding state—and the excluded member was specifically a nation of the Global South. Thus, the barring of South Africa could be perceived as a serious challenge for BRICS solidarity in actual international affairs.

Notably, it was experts from South Africa who argued most openly in 2025 that BRICS solidarity would prove hollow if confined to paper. They were warning that South Africa, as the ever-weak link, was left to face Trump’s pressure on its own—and that they sense no real support from BRICS.

The experience of the 2025 tariff wars has also made it clear that states of the Global South responded individually to Trump’s pressure, with no “united front” emerging. This underscores the vital importance of coordinating the political will of the World Majority—a task that is impossible unless their shared foundation of values is first consolidated.

It should be also pointed out that the value of solidarity is something that constitutes an integral part of the BRICS spirit currently taking shape. A description of the BRICS spirit and the values it’s built upon—that includes solidarity—can be encountered every year in the preamble for the BRICS summit declarations, starting in 2022.

It is not just within the context of the response to the actions of President Trump that solidarity among BRICS states and those of the Global non-West and South is important. Solidarity is key to an effective pushback against both neo-colonialism and the problem of Global South states growing increasingly dependent on the powers that be of international politics. It is no accident that the topic of strengthening solidarity in the face of the fight against inequality, poverty, and dependence—the main legacy of colonialism—is currently front and centre for states that are part of BRICS and other associations originating in the Global South. We should point out that Russia has always placed emphasis on extending support to the Global South in this just cause. Resisting neo-colonialism is among the key priorities of Russian foreign policy.

Another important aspect of solidarity between the countries of the Global Non-West and South is solidarity on the issue of collective memory. The year 2025—marking the anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic war and the Allied victory over Germany and Japan in the Second World War—revealed how crucial this aspect remains.

Altogether, strengthening solidarity in values among the World Majority countries is by no means an abstract concept—it remains intimately linked to the realities of contemporary global geopolitical struggles. The very place of non-western states in global politics may depend on how effectively said solidarity develops.

South Africa
Source: iol.co.za

While labour supports investment and does not oppose South Africa’s BRICS membership, Jim said government must reassess the value of its trade partnerships at a time when the domestic auto sector is facing intense import pressure and heightened global trade tensions.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has called on government to impose steep tariffs on imports from BRICS partners China and India, warning that local industry is under siege and that trade imbalances are deepening.

Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim made the remarks during a parliamentary briefing by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) and automotive industry stakeholders on the implementation of the South African Automotive Masterplan (SAAM) on Tuesday.

While labour supports investment and does not oppose South Africa’s BRICS membership, Jim said government must reassess the value of its trade partnerships at a time when the domestic auto sector is facing intense import pressure and heightened global trade tensions.

"We are not against BRICS. We are not against China. But if Chinese companies are investing here, then they must do proper investment, embark in proper manufacturing, actually create jobs in the value chain like VW and Mercedes Benz are doing," Jim said.

"We shouldn't ooh ahh about that. We need the dtic to represent us effectively."

Jim said Numsa had yet to be consulted on the concluded sale of Nissan’s Rosslyn plant to Chinese automaker Chery, adding the union wants clarity on job retention and the future of the Nissan-linked value chain.

He warned that unless local procurement is prioritised, particularly by government as the country’s largest fleet operator, further job losses could follow in the tyre sector.

Continental Tyres, he said, has flagged a bleak 2026 outlook, with plant capacity to produce 2.3 million tyres a year but current production allocations of about 1.7 million units.

"If they don't turn the picture around in nine months, they will be forced to follow Goodyear and close. Sumitomo in Ladysmith also threatening plant closure if they fail to turn around the picture," Jim said.
Zuko Godlimpi, deputy minister of the dtic, said the department was balancing efforts to attract investment from BRICS partners with the need to safeguard domestic industry.

"We are engaging Chinese auto firms to try to get them to set up shop in South Africa. You can't do that in a hostile setting. So we work very well with the Chinese government and Chinese auto manufacturers," Godlimpi said.

"We are trying to make the case that many of them must come to South Africa to set up shop. It is the same with the ones from India. So we don't have a negative attitude towards them."

Godlimpi said negotiations with Chinese automakers are part of a strategy to position South Africa as a manufacturing hub for exports into Africa under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
"But that conversation is not exclusively for the Chinese. We're having the same conversation with our traditional auto manufacturers in South Africa. We ideally want a scenario where we add more OEMs to the 7 plus that we have, as opposed to having anyone exiting.

"We don't want VW, BMW and anybody to leave. We want to build a capability where South Africa becomes a strategic manufacturing hub for exports into the continent and the rest of the world."
Godlimpi also said changing global trade patterns also present openings for South Africa.

"As the US pursues its foreign policy as it does, it runs the risk of decoupling itself from many of its traditional market partners. And that's an opportunity for us as well," he said.

"Think about it like this: if Canada starts to limit its dependence on the US auto-sector, they must answer the question: who are they going to source from? And our intention is to present South Africa as one of those."

Meanwhile, the National Association of Automotive Component and Allied Manufacturers (NAACAM) warned that domestic policy constraints, market weaknesses and global shifts have made SAAM targets increasingly difficult to achieve.

The association said business conditions in the component sector remain largely negative, citing weaker original equipment (OE) production outlooks, supply chain disruptions, rising raw material costs and growing trade complexities.

Although vehicle sales in 2025 recovered to pre-Covid levels, NAACAM said they remain below SAAM 2035 targets. Meanwhile, import penetration is rising and local production has stagnated below pre-pandemic levels of 600,000 units, leaving South Africa accounting for only about 0.6% of global vehicle output.

Greece
Source: moderndiplomacy.eu

Amid escalating tariff threats, economic sanctions, disorderly payment settlements, currency and liquidity stress, and compliance-driven de-risking in an intensifying geopolitical churn, the RBI’s call for CBDC-enabled payment settlements among BRICS countries, under India’s BRICS chairmanship, is both timely and necessary. India’s pursuit of alternative payment arrangements is driven by pragmatic needs of resilience, cost efficiency, speed, and strategic autonomy, not ideology, seeking de-SWIFTing for continuity, not de-dollarization or systemic rupture.

India’s exploration of cross-border settlement through its central bank digital currency, the e-rupee, reflects a geostrategic effort to de-weaponize payment infrastructure while safeguarding monetary sovereignty. Contrary to popular narratives, this is neither a push for a common BRICS currency nor a rejection of compliance regimes, de-SWIFT, or de-compliance, but a scaled pursuit of ‘interoperability’ without ‘integration,’ soliciting measured decoding of its policy and systemic implications.

BIS mBRIDGE ledger:

Given the absence of harmonization of monetary, financial, and fiscal or even trade policies among BRICS countries, the focus is on de-risking from threats of sanctions, resisting norm-agnostic financial order, and responding to hegemonistic tendencies shaping contemporary global order.

The most plausible pathway for future cross-border CBDC settlement lies in the ‘blockchain-based architecture’ conceptually like the BIS Innovation Hub’s mBridge initiative. In this model, domestic CBDC ledgers remain sovereign, ring-fenced, and balance-sheet neutral, while a neutral bridge layer, built on distributed ledger or blockchain-based coordination logic, enables payment-versus-payment (PvP) foreign exchange settlement. Such an arrangement eliminates settlement and Herstatt risk without creating a shared currency, a common ledger, or a supranational monetary authority.

Alternatively, cross-border CBDC settlements could be structured through bilateral corridors anchored in central-bank liquidity lines, with FX conversion governed by pre-agreed rules, reference rates, and corridor-specific limits.

BRICS Payment Settlement Flow Chart

India’s experience is particularly relevant in this context. The Reserve Bank of India has already piloted Wholesale CBDC (e₹-W) and Retail CBDC (e₹-R), demonstrating ledger robustness, programmability, and interoperability within domestic financial architecture. In the wholesale context, e₹-W enables inter-bank settlement, such as government securities delivery-versus-payment, directly in central bank money. In contrast, retail CBDC transactions (P2P and P2M) settle instantaneously between digital wallets on the CBDC ledger, often without requiring traditional interbank messaging (Brazil-STR/SPB, Russia-SPFS, India-SFMS, China-CIPS, South Africa-SAMOS) for finality. This positions India to adopt a bridge-based distributed ledger model that delivers efficiency gains while avoiding exposure to a shared ledger or monetary pooling.

Policy implications:

Given that the INR is not fully capital-account convertible, it is not merely improbable but also impermissible to permit unrestricted CBDC-based cross-border flows under current law. Illustratively, under FEMA, 1999 and regulations therein, every CBDC transaction must be purpose-coded (trade, investment, lending) and direction-controlled (inflows versus outflows).

Consequently, any cross-border use of the e-rupee would require programmable features embedding capital controls by design. Moreover, the e-rupee represents a direct liability of the RBI, hence allowing its cross-border circulation would increase foreign holdings of RBI liabilities and could generate monetary spillovers if not smartly and vigilantly ring-fenced. Given this frame, the likely policy stance is clear: non-resident access only within corridor-specific limits and no offshore e-rupee circulation, unlike the Eurodollar system.

CBDC corridors may facilitate transactional de-dollarization in trade settlement, but they also risk accelerating financial de-dollarization through capital mobility, posing macro-stability concerns for India. Given the INR’s limited capital-account convertibility, the RBI is structurally more comfortable with current-account trade settlement than capital or portfolio flows. Correspondingly, the policymakers need to prioritize invoice-linked trade corridors, not free-flowing financial channels with crypto-like speed in any such endeavor.

Furthermore, CBDC corridors compress settlement timelines, accelerating FX transmission. For India, this raises the sensitivity of INR liquidity to trade shocks and necessitates RBI-controlled FX windows within any bridge architecture. PvP FX rates are therefore likely to be policy-guided or band-limited, rather than fully market-determined, necessitating a mechanism like managed or dirty-float to tame INR volatility. Even as BRICS CBDC corridors are framed as SWIFT alternatives, India insists that any de-SWIFTing must retain robust compliance and transaction-level traceability, firmly de-SWIFTing, not de-compliance, given the history of ‘token-funded’ anti-national/anti-social activities against India.

Finally, as a rule-based jurisdiction, India’s policymakers must ensure that any proposed messaging infrastructure aligns with ISO 20022 business protocols for instruction flow, audit, and regulatory reporting, while the CBDC ledger is confined to value transfer and settlement finality, thereby preserving regulatory visibility without sacrificing CBDC-driven efficiency gains.

Way forward

Given the fact that the US is increasingly using dollar-backed ‘stablecoins’ as a strategic extension of its financial power, recycling global digital liquidity into U.S. Treasuries, and reinforcing dollar dominance in new technological form. By leveraging stablecoin reserves in short-term sovereign debt, the U.S. is effectively broadening the investor base for its fiscal deficits while embedding American jurisdiction, standards, and influence into emerging payment ecosystems. This development signals that monetary hegemony is being digitally re-engineered rather than diminished.

In this context, it is imperative for BRICS countries to assert financial autonomy without fragmenting the global system. Accordingly, a blockchain-based wholesale CBDC framework offers a pragmatic response. For India, this means anchoring BRICS mBridge-type arrangements to trade settlement, avoiding capital-flow volatility while simultaneously overcoming the challenges of weaponized currencies. India’s mature payment infrastructure, SFMS, RTGS, NEFT, and NPCI platforms such as UPI and interoperable wallet ecosystems, provides a credible foundation for scalable, compliant, and sovereign interoperability.

The Reserve Bank of India should lead this effort, positioning India as a rule-based convener for the Global South. By prioritizing programmability, ISO-20022-aligned messaging, compliance safeguards, and RBI-controlled FX mechanisms, India can showcase a non-weaponized, inclusive, and development-oriented model of CBDC cooperation. This is not monetary reinvention but strategic engineering, reducing coercive exposure, diversifying settlement options, and strengthening collective resilience in an increasingly hegemonic financial order.

Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org


The start of the year 2026 proved to be even more volatile in terms of international events than many pessimists would have foreseen. Against the backdrop of a further escalation in geopolitical risks, the global economic community is starting to exhibit close to frenetic activity in seeking to re-direct trade and investment flows towards those regions and sectors that are not as encumbered with rising tariffs. This process is leading many economies, including some of the advanced countries, to seek trade alliances in the Global South, where Mercosur, ASEAN, India are seen as the most sought after trade partners amid the fragmentation of trade ties across the developed world.

The scale of geopolitical shocks witnessed in 2025-2026 is indeed becoming transformative for the global trade system as higher levels of import tariffs are leading to a qualitative shift in the direction of trade flows and alliances. UNCTAD singles out a number of key trends in international trade for 2026, of which some of the most important from our point of view are the following[1]:

– Tariffs on the rise: according to UNCTAD, while trade-weighted average applied tariffs are intact for natural resources at 0.8% in 2025 compared to 2024, for agriculture the increase was from 5.7% to 6.7%, while for manufacturing the rise was from 1.9% to 4.7%[2].

– Value chains continue to reconfigure as geopolitics transforms trade and investment itineraries: as noted in the report, “nearly two thirds of global trade takes place within value chains that are being reshaped by geopolitical tensions, industrial policy and new technologies”[3].

– Rising role of services in trade: exports of services continue to grow faster than goods; in developing economies the growth of exports in digitally-deliverable services from 2015 to 2024 amounted to 8.4% – higher than the 6.7% figure in the developed world[4].

– South–South trade surge: from 1995 to 2024 the share of developing countries in the merchandise exports of the Global South increased from 38.3% to 55.6%; of the main regions of the developing world, the most significant rise was observed in Africa – from 23.3% to 40.2%[5].

The latter trend of greater South-South trade in our view is likely to be the defining transformation of the global trading system in the coming years. Some of the remaining reserves in boosting South-South trade include regional integration (most notably in Africa) as well as inter-regional trade liberalization, including via such platforms as BRICS+. As noted by UNCTAD, at this juncture “interregional trade outside Asia, particularly between Africa and Latin America, remains significantly underdeveloped despite strong complementarities”[6].

In observing the trends towards greater South-South trade on the one hand and the pressures exerted by the US in the trade sphere on the other, developed economies from Europe and other parts of the globe are seeking pathways to securing access to growing markets in the developing world. This in turn was reflected in a flurry of visits by leaders of advanced economies to the large developing economies such as China and India, as well as in an expedited conclusion of trade talks on FTA agreements.

In particular, in January 2026, the EU declared in a span of several days that it clinched FTA accords with Mercosur[7] as well as with India[8]. After singning the deal with Mercosur and completing the trade talks with India, the EU is now exploring its trade options in Southeast Asia, where an FTA agreement Malaysia could be finalized in 2026-2027, with EU ambitions potentially then expanding to the negotiation of an FTA agreement covering all of ASEAN[9].

For his part, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has undertaken a visit to China in January 2026, with mutual trade being the key focus of his discussions with China’s leader Xi. According to Canada’s Globe and Mail, in 2026 Carney’s itinerary in boosting trade ties will include India (likely in February 2026), Brazil (likely April 2026), China (again, this time in November)[10].

With North-North trade and investment ties under pressure and with advanced economies facing headwinds on the economic growth front, developing economies with high growth and sizeable post-liberalization preferential margins become attractive as potential counterparts in trade accords. This in turn can be exploited by fast-growing emerging markets via two tracks:

1. pursuing South-South trade accords, thus raising the optionality of trade ties as well as the economic weight of the Global South economies in building North-South accords
2. pursuing a strategy of “competitive liberalization” in North-South trade accords (vis-à-vis developed economies), thus seeking to extract the maximum benefit from the rising competition among developed economies to conclude agreements with the Global South

India in particular becomes one of the most coveted emerging markets with which developed and developing economies are striving to conclude preferential agreements. This is due to a combination of some of the highest growth rates in the global economy in the past several years (7.3% in 2025 according to the IMF) as well as the status of one of the largest economies in the world, with a strong potential for further expansion in the ranks of the “middle class”. Another factor is the relatively high level of trade barriers in India – this in effect raises the preferential margin that partner economies derive from concluding a preferential agreement with India. 

In the end, the shift of the global economy towards greater South-South economic cooperation is not a foregone conclusion – there need to be pro-active steps undertaken by platforms such as BRICS+ to support this shift in the development of the world economy. As we have argued on numerous occasions, this can be attained via the formation of a common trade bloc within the WTO and the development of roadmaps for mutual trade liberalization, WTO reform and the new WTO global trade round. Mutual trade liberalization could be best addressed via a fast-tracked “integration of integrations” approach in line with the BEAMS concept elaborated back in 2018[11]. Thus far, however, with the BRICS+ platform increasingly taking the lead in supporting fair and balanced trade, it does appear that it is becoming the focal point of a revitalized effort to relaunch the globalization process[12].  

[1] https://unctad.org/publication/global-trade-update-january-2026-top-trends-redefining-global-trade-2026
[2] op. cit.
[3] op. cit.
[4] op. cit.
[5] op.cit.
[6] https://unctad.org/publication/global-trade-update-january-2026-top-trends-redefining-global-trade-2026
[7] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/eu-mercosur-sign-trade-deal-after-25-years-negotiations-2026-01-17/
[8] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/india-eu-slash-tariffs-autos-spirits-textile-landmark-deal-2026-01-27/
[9] https://indonesiabusinesspost.com/5996/markets-and-finance/eu-signals-possible-asean-wide-trade-pact-review-after-2027
[10] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-carney-trade-travel-pmo-china-brazil-davos/
[11] https://www.brics2018.org.za/shining-beams-brics/
[12] https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/brics-plus-alternative-globalization-in-the-making/

Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics