The Brics group – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa – expanded on January 1, 2024 with the entry of Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and of Ethiopia. The Brics now represent almost half of the world’s population and a quarter of the planet’s GDP. This coalition, which has no other name than this baroque acronym, wants to present itself as the new G7, the group of developed countries created in 1975 and which has since brought together Germany, Canada, the United States , France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom.
In the absence of specific projects, the enlarged Brics are only united by anti-Western resentment, as evidenced by the location chosen for the first meeting in this format, in Russia. Their main stated goal is to eventually do without the dollar. A vain objective, as the American currency remains dominant in international finance in the absence of a serious competitor. Since the Chinese yuan is not fully convertible, especially in the area of financial transactions, it cannot fulfill this function.
If the Brics are incapable of implementing coordinated actions, it is for a fundamental reason: what is the strategic common denominator between China, which is fighting to become the world’s leading economy, Russia, which favors its warlike nationalism over economic development, Indian democracy and its geopolitical pragmatism, or Saudi Arabia, ally of the United States, obsessed with innovation and the post-oil era? The G7 countries often find it difficult to agree among themselves. What will we say about the BRICS?
The hegemony of the dollar still has a bright future
There is one head of state who made no mistake: the new Argentine President Javier Milei. We can find many faults in this crude, populist, climate skeptic, pro-gun and hostile to abortion character. But he is a professional economist, who knows liberal philosophy. He therefore knows that the dollar will remain the international currency for a long time to come and that the Brics cannot do without Western technologies.
Milei canceled Argentina’s planned entry into the BRICS, arguing that he did not want to associate with countries that do not respect free trade or democracy. Above all, he wants to remain close to the United States because he understood that their economic and military domination was not threatened. The Argentine president tells us that the future is not with the Brics. In the current anti-Western climate, where even American and European elites spend their time dwelling on the inadequacies of our democracies, this position stands out.
Hostility to the West is no guarantee of prosperity
These new Brics are not an exclusive club of dictators. Brazil, India and South Africa are great democracies. But, as Dominique Reynié noted a few days ago on LCI, China – which largely dominates this circle – Russia and Iran have entered into a logic of fight against democracy. Internal struggle first, as evidenced by the repression in these countries, notably the bringing Hong Kong into line, but also external. These states dream of a world where democracy declines and their authoritarian model becomes the norm.
No doubt they will be overtaken by the long-term incompatibility between harmonious economic development and an authoritarian political regime, as shown by the economic difficulties of China, but also of Hong Kong, which has seen head offices leave since Beijing began to suffocate him. We can therefore predict that the BRICS will increasingly have to take care of their internal economic affairs and that there is little chance that their interests will begin to converge. Resentment against the West will bring them neither power nor prosperity.
For our part, let us invest in innovation and training to ward off our economic and social difficulties, let us considerably increase our defense effort to protect ourselves, and let us stand ready to establish links with those countries which, like Argentina , will end up understanding that cooperation with Moscow or Tehran cannot bring them much positive.
Nicolas Bouzou, economist and essayist, is director of the consulting firm Astères
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