Tuesday, July 8, 2025

BRICS Summit 2025: Xi and Putin Missing in Rio, and the Illusion of Multipolarity

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Amid the sweltering humidity of Rio de Janeiro, the so-called emerging alternative to Western hegemony opens its doors to the world, yet behind the flamboyant promises of the BRICS Summit 2025, the absences speak louder than the final declarations. Xi Jinping, the unyielding symbol of China’s ascent, is nowhere to be seen. Vladimir Putin, trapped by a nagging ICC arrest warrant, appears only as a pixelated phantom. And Donald Trump’s America, uninvited yet omnipresent, looms over the discussions like a threat of punitive tariffs.

One must wonder if this expanded bloc, now counting eleven states after last year’s hasty enlargement, has the spine to stand up to the West, or if it remains little more than a roundtable for grievances, an echo chamber for unresolved contradictions.

A Club of Words, Short on Deeds

The BRICS have grown, that much is clear. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE have all been ushered into the fold, as has Indonesia since January. In theory, this should cement a new axis: a counterweight to the G7, an ambitious South-South coalition. In practice, it reads more like a patchwork of misaligned agendas and bruised egos.

China’s official excuse for Xi’s absence, scheduling conflicts, is about as credible as a weather forecast for next decade. The truth is more prosaic: China’s economic turbulence at home and its increasingly cautious foreign posture signal a regime that prefers shadow diplomacy to the photo-ops of Rio. Meanwhile, Putin’s no-show is pure realpolitik. A president who cannot step foot on the soil of a fellow BRICS state without risking arrest reveals the limits of this “alternative order”.

No amount of final communiqués can disguise this reality: what was once sold as an anti-hegemonic bloc looks, in moments like these, more like an ersatz United Nations, all rhetoric, little muscle.

Trump’s Tariff Gambit: The Dollar Remains King

As the delegations gathered, Trump wasted no time setting the tone. His threat of an additional 10% tariff on goods from BRICS-affiliated economies underscores an inconvenient truth: the dollar’s dominion remains the backbone of global commerce, and the US Treasury its enforcer.

Brazil and India know this well. Lula da Silva, trying to juggle his green ambitions with a domestic crisis of confidence, needs Western trade as much as he wants to speak for the Global South. Modi, ever the strategic balancer, talks of sovereignty yet keeps one eye on the US market. For all the talk of de-dollarisation, no credible alternative payment system has emerged that can handle the sheer scale of global settlements.

Moscow’s attempt last year, pushing a “BRICS Pay” system in Kazan, floundered when it met the cold reality of markets that still cling to greenbacks. In Rio, there is no sign of anything more robust on the horizon.

A Stage for Lula, A Lifeline for Brasilia

The hosting role gives Lula a rare stage. Domestically embattled, facing declining popularity and gridlock in Congress, the Brazilian president knows that burnishing his global peacemaker credentials costs him nothing. He denounces “the unprecedented collapse of multilateralism” in his opening speech — a line he has recycled since his first presidency. He calls for the BRICS to mediate in the Israel-Iran conflict, in Gaza’s ceaseless tragedy, in Ukraine’s frozen frontlines.

Yet none of these overtures come with the hard power to make them stick. Peace requires leverage; the BRICS command slogans. Lula’s true gamble lies elsewhere: the COP30 climate summit in Belém, set for November, which he wants to market as proof of Brazil’s ecological leadership. Rio is a dress rehearsal for that ambition — a chance to proclaim tropical stewardship while deflecting questions about deforestation and illegal mining that continue to eat away at the Amazon.

Expansion or Dilution?

When the BRICS announced their historic enlargement last year, many in the Western press were quick to sound the alarm: here comes the new non-aligned movement, bigger, bolder, ready to flip the table on G7 orthodoxy. But the fine print tells a less dramatic story.

India, already at odds with China over border tensions and wary of Beijing’s Belt and Road entanglements, has little appetite for an uncritical embrace. Brazil, the bloc’s soft power champion, would rather play interlocutor than provocateur. Egypt and Ethiopia arrive with rival interests in the Red Sea corridor. Iran, under crushing sanctions, sees the BRICS as a lifeline, but the rest of the club sees Tehran as a liability more than a partner.

This patchwork is presented as multipolarity. In truth, it risks becoming a cacophony, where conflicting sovereignties neutralize one another before any coherent front can materialize.

What Remains: The Mirage of a New Order

The final communiqués will read as they always do: affirmations of the need for UN reform, for a new financial architecture, for climate justice. The words are chosen with care, and designed to offend no one too directly. The real news is written between the lines: no collective condemnation of Trump’s tariff threats, no bold step towards a BRICS currency, no meaningful roadmap for Gaza, Iran, or Ukraine beyond familiar platitudes.

A few uniformed soldiers patrol Rio’s beaches as helicopters hover overhead, a theater of security for a summit that fears its own shadow. Meanwhile, the dollar remains unchallenged. The ICC warrant reminds Moscow that Western law still bites when it must. And Beijing’s silence hints that its so-called pivot to the Global South is more about hedging its bets than forging unbreakable alliances.

The Takeaway: Beware the Soft Consensus

If this BRICS Summit 2025 teaches anything, it is that multipolarity, that cherished slogan of every frustrated capital from Delhi to Pretoria, is not a given. It must be built, brick by brick, with institutions that do more than issue carefully worded statements.

Trump’s tariff gambit is a test the bloc is unlikely to pass. Xi’s absence and Putin’s legal limbo expose the fragility of a system that still leans on sovereign pride rather than structural unity. Lula’s peacemaker routine may play well in the headlines, but it will struggle to outlive the closing ceremony.

In the end, Rio offers a reminder: the true test of any alternative order is not how it talks when gathered in a beachside convention hall, but how it acts when the dollar retaliates, the tanks roll, and the markets panic. For now, the BRICS remain a club of words, and the world knows it.

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