By: Omar Silva I Editor / Publisher

National Perspective Belize – Editorial Research Team

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Monday 7th July 2025

🌍 Original Special Headline Feature

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL: The 10th Annual BRICS Summit, held in Brazil’s sunlit Rio de Janeiro this past weekend, unfolded as a declaration of intent from a coalition whose economic clout has quietly surpassed that of the G7. What began in 2009 as a modest grouping of emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—has now expanded to eleven members and transformed into a formidable economic and diplomatic pole challenging decades of Western-dominated governance.

Over two days of intense dialogue and symbolism, the BRICS 10th anniversary gathering exposed not only the bloc’s growing ambitions but also the reasons why Washington and its closest allies increasingly view it as an existential threat to the global status quo.

🌐 The BRICS Moment: From Emerging Economies to Global Contenders

When the first summit convened in Yekaterinburg in 2009, the group accounted for roughly 16% of global GDP. Today, with the addition of Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE (collectively referred to as BRICS+), it represents nearly 36% of world GDP—overtaking the G7 for the first time in modern history.

Beyond the statistics lies a deeper reality: BRICS has become a political platform for countries frustrated with a Western-centric economic order that has long privileged the dollar, Western credit ratings, and transatlantic military alliances.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the host of this milestone summit, made this point explicit. Standing before a packed auditorium on July 5, he declared:

“We are witnessing the unprecedented collapse of multilateralism. This is the most adverse scenario for cooperation that BRICS has faced since its birth. But precisely for that reason, our union has never been more vital.”

His words encapsulated the dual purpose of BRICS: to project collective leverage in reshaping global institutions and to build economic alternatives that liberate members from dependency on Western finance and trade routes.

🇧🇷 Lula’s Vision: A New Multipolar Consensus

President Lula used Brazil’s leadership of the summit to chart an ambitious agenda for what he called “a Global South consensus”:

Reforming the UN Security Council, IMF, and World Bank to reflect the real weight of developing nations.

Launching the “Tropical Forests Forever Facility,” a climate-finance fund that Brazil hopes will mobilize billions for forest conservation—backed in principle by China and the UAE.

Expanding payment systems in local currencies, to gradually reduce dollar dependency without triggering sudden economic shocks.

Calling for an end to armed conflicts, from Gaza to Ukraine, in language carefully avoiding direct condemnation of any single power.

Urging BRICS to become the backbone of climate action ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil next year.

“Those who polluted the planet must pay their environmental debt,” Lula insisted, pointing at rich economies that pledged—and failed—to deliver $300 billion annually for the energy transition.

🗣 The Other Voices: Unity in Diversity—But Also Tension

The summit was a showcase of diversity that is both BRICS’s strength and its Achilles’ heel.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, attending in person, echoed Lula’s call for UN reform and a fairer trade order, while emphasizing AI governance and food security.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted Africa’s growing role and underscored that BRICS was not “an adversary bloc.”

Indonesia’s new president, Prabowo Subianto, representing one of the largest democracies in Asia, championed “a thousand friends, zero enemies,” reaffirming Jakarta’s commitment to Palestinian statehood.

Iran’s and Russia’s delegations, emboldened by recent Western sanctions, called for an acceleration of non-dollar trade and condemned “Western economic warfare.”

Yet these positions underscored latent tensions: China’s absence (President Xi appeared only by video), India’s balancing act with the U.S., and divergent political systems, from democracies to authoritarian regimes, that complicate consensus.

💸 The Economic Power Shift—and American Anxiety

While Western media focused on the absences and divisions, the raw economic math tells a different story.

BRICS+ countries today account for over 42% of global oil output, a reality that directly influences energy prices.

They have become the biggest creditors to African infrastructure, surpassing Western development banks.

Their combined populations exceed 4.2 billion people, forming the planet’s largest consumer base.

Perhaps more telling: trade within BRICS is growing faster than with the G7.

This ascendancy underpins the mounting nervousness in Washington.

When former U.S. President Donald Trump threatened a 10% tariff on all BRICS-aligned nations last week, he effectively acknowledged that the economic center of gravity is shifting away from the West.

Lula shot back:

“The world has changed. We don’t want an emperor. We are sovereign nations.”

Such remarks resonated not only in the BRICS capitals but also across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, where decades of perceived Western double standards and protectionism have fueled resentment.

🌿 Climate Action, Currency Talk, and Cautious Steps Forward

While some anticipated a declaration of a single BRICS currency, the bloc instead agreed to gradually expand local currency settlements—a pragmatic approach given internal divisions and the dominance of China’s renminbi.

More concrete was the Rio Declaration, a 31-page document that:

Condemned protectionist tariffs and unilateral sanctions.

Reaffirmed support for Palestinian statehood and a negotiated solution in Ukraine.

Endorsed Lula’s climate finance facility and a suite of AI and health partnerships.

Significantly, BRICS leaders committed to present a detailed plan for local currency clearinghouses by the 2026 summit in Egypt—an incremental but unmistakable step away from the dollar era.

⚖️ Why the West Feels Threatened

For the U.S. and its G7 allies, BRICS is more than a trade consortium. It is a symbolic and structural challenge:

Symbolic, because it undermines the moral authority of Western institutions that claim to speak for “international rules.”

Structural, because it aggregates the economic power of nations whose primary trading partner is no longer Europe or North America—but each other.

The fear in Washington is not just that BRICS will bypass the dollar. It is that, over time, it will develop the institutional muscle—the banks, the supply chains, the technological standards—to build an alternative global system.

✨ Conclusion: A World in Transition

As the Rio summit ended, Lula, Modi, Ramaphosa, and their colleagues walked away without illusions about the challenges ahead.

Internal rifts remain. The G7 retains deep capital markets and formidable alliances.

But the trajectory is clear: BRICS is no longer a sideshow in global affairs.

In the words of Lula:

“The Global South is not an appendix to the world economy. We are at the center of it.”

For the first time in generations, the United States and its allies face a multipolar reality they cannot easily ignore—or control.

The BRICS ship has sailed ahead, and in its wake is the possibility of a rebalanced world order—one that might finally reflect the aspirations of the majority of humanity.