This year, the BRICS—a ten-country group whose first five members were Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—has gained a renewed sense of purpose thanks to one catalyst: the United States. With U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the bloc looks, more than ever, like a necessary hedge against an increasingly erratic and fragmented global order.
Many of Trump’s actions—including his chaotic tariff crusade against friends and foes, strikes on Iran and legally dubious military actions in Latin America, and withdrawal from the UN-supported Paris agreement on climate change—have sparked condemnation from the BRICS.
Yet, despite this shared wariness of Washington, the group remains fundamentally divided. The lofty rhetoric of a multipolar world order masks deep fissures between member states, particularly India and China, whose border disputes and strategic rivalries continue to simmer.
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