Commentary
What is the impact on the global strategic balance of plans by the BRICS nations to create an economic framework or marketplace, possibly backed in the future by an independent currency regime?
The BRICS bloc—Brazil, Russia, India, China (PRC), and South Africa—was originally an acronym conceived by New York investors in 2001, but assumed a separate life through agreements between the governments of the “member” states after about 2006. The states were in many ways mutually incompatible as strategic partners, and yet in 2023 there was discussion about the creation of a new BRICS currency to enable the members to trade more fluidly with each other—and without the use of U.S. dollars….