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BRICS Vs. The West: The Western Hypocrisy
The BBC ran this headline on September 11, just a day before the summit officially opened in New Delhi. Before the declaration was signed, before the leaders sat down to negotiate a consensus, Washington had already entered the story without being invited. BRICS leaders unanimously adopted the New Delhi Declaration on the first day of the summit.
Illustration by The Geostrata
Within days, Russia was hit with fresh US sanctions targeting VTB Bank, which is Russia's second-largest bank and Washington framed this as punishment for helping Iran evade sanctions, not as a response to BRICS. The Timing still says plenty. In 2025, too, Trump had threatened an extra 10% tariff on countries aligning with BRICS so-called “anti-American policies,” just hours after the bloc criticized rising tariffs. Every year it's the same story: BRICS, the US, and a little déjà vu moment.
BRICS AND ITS GOALS
Strip away the headlines, and BRICS gets a lot more interesting than the usual label of an “anti-West bloc.” It began in 2009 as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and South Africa joined in 2010-11. Today it is a transcontinental coalition of 11 members, an expanded 11-member grouping that pairs major Global South states with Russia and spans Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Its members represent roughly half of the world's population, about 40% of global GDP, and around a quarter of global trade.
BRICS is very different from NATO. It has no Article 5, no common military command, no supranational government, and no collective-defence commitment. Its cohesion comes from shared interests : members cooperate where their positions converge, without requiring uniformity on every issue. The agenda spans the political, economic and geopolitical realm but primary focus is on economic cooperation. At its core, BRICS is about redistributing where global power sits.
Economically, that means deeper intra-BRICS trade, wider use of local currencies, and less dependence on dollar-dominated financial systems.
Politically, it means pushing to reform institutions such as the UN Security Council, which BRICS members argue still reflects a post-Second World War balance of power rather than changed geopolitical and economic realities of today. Across both fronts, the objective is similar: less concentration of global decision-making in the West and greater agency for emerging and developing economies.
It is less about replacing the existing order than about making it look a lot less like 1945. This de-centering of the West makes BRICS look less like an anti-West alliance that Washington fears. In all aspects, it's a reformist, not a radical grouping.
IS IT A THREAT?
The real weight of BRICS does not come from guns or alliances; it comes from what its members can do with their combined economic strength. By purchasing power parity, the bloc’s combined economy has already surpassed that of the G7, while in nominal terms too, its members account for roughly 40% of global GDP and more than a quarter of global trade.
More importantly, that economic weight is being paired with an attempt to change how countries trade, pay and finance themselves (economic vision).
Still, the dollar remains firmly at the centre of the system, accounting for 56.70% of official foreign-exchange reserves in the second quarter of 2026. BRICS is not about to replace it with a common currency. The more realistic and arguably more consequential goal is to make the dollar less indispensable.
Member states have been pushing for local-currency trade, stronger correspondent banking networks and interoperable cross-border payment systems, while exploring infrastructure that can reduce the need for dollar-based settlement. And this is already visible beyond the declaration. China-Russia trade hit a record $237 billion in 2024, with both increasingly using their own currencies. Russia has also turned more to the yuan as Western sanctions restricted its access to dollars and euros. De-dollarization, after all, doesn’t always arrive with a grand announcement.
Sometimes, it’s simply two countries realizing they can trade at this scale without putting the dollar in the middle.
The New Development Bank (NDB) is perhaps the most tangible institution to emerge from BRICS. So far, it has approved 141 projects worth around $44 billion, with about $25 billion already disbursed, largely towards infrastructure and sustainable development across emerging economies. Its governance also gives the founding members equal voting rights, offering a different model from the constituency-based voting structure associated with institutions such as the IMF.
And then there’s oil. With major producers like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia inside BRICS, a move towards trading more energy in local currencies could slowly chip away at the dollar’s grip on the oil trade. This threat lies not in replacing the dollar overnight, but in making it less essential. The real shift is in creating a world where the dollar is no longer the only game in town.
WESTERN PATTERN OF RESPONSE
Sanctions, tariffs, and diplomatic pressure is the holy grail trio that Washington resorts to when it doesn't like where BRICS is headed. In 2026, the pressure has come in several forms: tariffs on Brazil, fresh sanctions on Russia, and the threat of tariffs as high as 100% on major buyers of Russian energy-putting countries such as India and China in the crosshairs. But this is certainly not Washington’s first rodeo. The pattern was especially visible in 2025. At the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Trump warned that countries aligning with what he called BRICS’ “anti-American policies” would face an 10% U.S. tariff.
And the pressure extended beyond BRICS itself: Washington’s 2025 tariff war with China saw duties climb as high as 125%, while India faced an additional 25% tariff over its purchases of Russian oil. Together, they added another chapter to Washington’s increasingly familiar use of tariffs as an instrument of geopolitical pressure. So, when BRICS pushes to reshape the economic order, Washington has repeatedly reached for tariffs and sanctions, pressure designed to disrupt the system the bloc is trying to build.
Perhaps the real contradiction is in what BRICS is trying to do versus how it is being portrayed. While Western headlines often reduce it to an “anti-American” project and sanctions and tariffs continue to shape the response, BRICS’ agenda is far more ordinary and far broader: economic cooperation, greater security, reform of global governance and more room for developing economies in the international system. Its members may not be looking to dismantle the existing order; they are simply asking for a greater say in shaping what comes next.
BY YUVNA
TEAM GEOSTRATA info@thegeostrata.com
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