The US is not a member of Brics, yet President Donald Trump’s shadow will loom large over the group’s summit in Delhi this weekend. Leaders from 11 Brics nations – including host India, China, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, the UAE and Iran, with Saudi Arabia attending as an invited member – will hold talks on a wide range of issues. But few will be as consequential as the impact of President Trump’s policies. The war in Iran and the ever-present threat of White House tariffs, directed at both US adversaries and allies, have destabilised global energy markets and has often left the global economy guessing the future.
It is against this backdrop that Brics leaders are meeting. Yet the group is unlikely to produce a consensus statement that openly calls out the US or lays out a coordinated strategy to counter President Trump’s policies and geopolitics. That is partly because Brics itself is deeply divided over how far it should go in challenging Washington. “India cannot afford to have a joint statement that rails against Washington,” Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told the BBC.
He expects any criticism of US policies to be “vague and indirect”, reflecting the sharply divergent interests within the expanded group. While Russia and Iran may push for the group to take a clearer stand against President Trump, the geopolitical realities within Brics are likely to make that difficult. India, which is reportedly in the final stages of a trade deal with the US, will not want a statement that could upset the White House. China, too, may be wary of being seen as using Brics to target Washington.
Then there is the UAE, which has come under Iranian attack during Tehran’s retaliation against US and Israeli strikes. The Gulf state, which hosts US military bases, is unlikely to support a statement that helps Tehran’s cause. Kugelman says Brics has become more significant through its expansion, but that has also made consensus harder. “You’ve added a number of members that don’t get along,” he said, describing the challenge for India as bringing together countries with “a wide array of views and positions on the global order”.
Trump has also been quite vocal against Brics, particularly its efforts to reduce global trade’s dependence on the US dollar, commonly known as de-dollarisation. He has often warned the group against trying to come up with an alternative currency or take measures to weaken the dollar’s dominance in global trade. In one such threat, Trump said in November 2024 that Brics countries would face “100% tariffs” if they backed another currency to replace the “mighty US dollar”. Under these circumstances, what can the group realistically deliver?
Brics’ geopolitical and economic heft has grown substantially over the past decade. While it will be reluctant to take an openly anti-US or anti-Western position, the group will be looking to build on its existing achievements and demonstrate that it can emerge as an alternative blocs like the G20 and G7. Brics now accounts for 49% of the world’s population, 40% of global GDP and 26% of international trade, according to BBC Monitoring’s analysis. Its most tangible achievement remains the New Development Bank – which has approved billions of dollars in infrastructure and development projects – many of them in countries of the global south.
The group has also created a $100bn contingency reserve arrangement to help members facing financial crises, although it has yet to be tested. The leaders are also likely to explore ways to make cross-border payments in local currencies easier. That will be of particular interest to Moscow and Tehran, both of which face severe US sanctions. Brics is also expected to continue positioning itself as a voice for the developing nations, collectively pushing for reforms to institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which many developing nations feel do not accurately reflect the new global order.
For India, in particular, the summit offers an opportunity to strengthen its claim to leadership of the global south. Many of Delhi’s own foreign policy priorities, including multilateralism, a more multipolar world, greater representation for developing countries and freer global trade, align closely with Brics’ wider agenda. But India will also have to find ways to work around China’s considerable influence within Brics and its stronger presence across much of the developing world. The Modi government has placed a strong emphasis on becoming a “leader or a voice of the Global South”, Kugelman says.
But India’s efforts have had “limited success” in making deeper inroads in Africa and Latin America, where China has been more successful. With most Brics members coming from developing economies, Kugelman says the expanded grouping gives India an opportunity to deepen ties with countries such as Ethiopia, Brazil and Indonesia and build a stronger profile across Africa and Latin America. For Delhi, the test will be whether it can secure a consensus statement – often seen as a measure of a host nation’s diplomatic success. That will be difficult given sharp differences over the Iran war, relations with the US and the future of global trade.
The scale of the challenge was evident in May, when Brics foreign ministers failed to agree on a joint statement after their summit because of differences over the Iran war, leaving host India to issue a chair’s summary instead. India will take confidence from its experience as G20 host in 2023, when it managed to secure a joint declaration despite deep divisions over Russia’s war in Ukraine. But Delhi will also want substantive announcements and to highlight what Brics has already achieved. On this, members are likely to agree: none will want the grouping dismissed as merely a “talk shop”.
Leaders are expected to explore ways to strengthen financial cooperation and may make substantive announcements. They are also likely to address major geopolitical developments, with any language on the US is expected to be carefully crafted to avoid confrontation. Washington, for its part, will be watching closely. The summit will also provide the setting for several important bilateral meetings.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday will be keenly watched. The two countries have been slowly rebuilding ties, although progress has been more cautious than either side might have hoped. Modi is also due to meet President Vladimir Putin, with the war in Ukraine likely to feature prominently in their discussions. Modi made a highly public appeal for peace when he met Putin last month on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek.
While some interpreted his remarks as a rebuke to Moscow, Russia did not see them that way and publicly welcomed Modi’s efforts. Beyond geopolitics, India’s growing trade deficit with both Russia and China is also likely to feature in the bilateral discussions. But in the end, the group’s focus will be on concluding a successful summit as it would add further weight to Brics’ influence. And for host India, it would also be a diplomatic and geopolitical achievement at a time when Delhi is seeking to reassert its international influence.
Kugelman says the stakes are particularly high for India at this summit. Delhi, he argues, has been somewhat overshadowed by Pakistan’s recent diplomatic role in the Middle East, including its involvement in mediation efforts around the Iran war. “This is an important opportunity for India to reassert its global significance and its global leadership,” he says. “That is one reason why the stakes are high.” The summit, he adds, is in some ways “more important for India as host than it is for the Brics grouping as a whole”.
