July 6th-7th marked the summit of the BRICS, a grouping of eleven nations largely from the Global South. These include the founding members of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, along with the recently added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates. The meeting coincides with geopolitical tensions rising around the world, most notably in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the South China Sea, and tariff threats from the Trump administration in Washington. Noticeably absent from the meeting were Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, the leaders of Washington’s two biggest geopolitical rivals.
One of the most intriguing outcomes of the summit was the announcement of the BRICS Multilateral Guarantees Initiative, modeled after the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. According to the Atlantic Council, this “would be aimed at facilitating infrastructure and development investment across the Global South by providing investment guarantees to reduce political risk.” This is congruent with a long-running trend in BRICS activity that seeks to set up alternative or complementary institutions to those dominated by Western countries, and specifically the United States.
The United States, like Xi and Putin at the summit, was absent from the group’s joint declaration. This is despite Trump repeatedly condemning BRICS as an organization designed to harm the United States through such measures as dethroning the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, the establishment of competing institutions, and more. Trump has introduced–yet again–the threat of stiff tariffs on BRICS member countries, most recently a 50% levy on Brazilian goods exported to America. This tariff on Brazil is especially brutal as the threat demanded an immediate end to the “witch hunt” of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. Such a move is a drastic intervention into the domestic politics of Brazil, and harkens back to the worst aspects of the Monroe Doctrine which has often been invoked to justify American imperialism in the Western Hemisphere. Whether such a strategy will be successful for the administration will need time to tell, because even though the United States represents a significant percentage of BRICS-member countries’ exports, it is not the largest trading partner for many.
Atlas welcomes the addition of multilateral institutions which can give access to secure investments for the developing world. We do not, however, support the return to bloc-based power politics as seen in the Cold War. The United States, even before Trump’s second term, has been receding from its position as the sole global superpower for at least two decades. This is so first and foremost because of the rise of China. A Beijing-centric global order, though, is not an improvement on a Washington-centric order. A democratic global order must replace the death throes of the Pax Americana, and this will be rooted in a democratized United Nations, a dramatic shrinking of global inequality, and the creation of institutions capable of preventing the outbreak of armed conflict.
Our Survival Bill begins to address these shortcomings of the current order. In it we propose solutions for ending poverty, resisting dictatorships, controlling AI, saving the planet, avoiding the next pandemic, stopping wars, and rebuilding the United Nations. We ask that you read, reflect on, and share it on your social media to help grow our party. As always, we also ask you to join us in the fight for democracy, peace, equality, and survival.
By Trent Trepanier
Photo: Vecteezy