BRICS now the biggest trade bloc on the planet

Anna Chen – 24 October 2024, BRICS

The dogs bark but the caravan moves on. BRICS is now officially the world’s biggest trade bloc. Saudi Arabia* and others are joining the stampede into the core alignment of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which overtook the G7 in GDP in 2020.

The 16th BRICS summit has just taken place in Kazan, Russia, attended for the first time by Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia.

The UK could have been part of this, as promised when we were mis-sold Brexit. At the opposite end of the Eurasia landmass, we enjoyed a strategic advantage. Pole position! The choice with which we were presented was: Go down with the USS Titanic? Or thrive in the new world?

Against the public interest, both Tory and Labour governments have decided to keep us on the sidelines lobbing grenades.

According to Statista:

The BRICS countries overtook the G7 countries share of the world’s total gross domestic product (GDP) in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) in 2018. By 2024, the difference had increased even further, the BRICS now holding a total 35 percent of the world’s GDP compared to 30 percent held by the G7 countries.

Saudi Arabia’s arrival in BRICS dealt a death sentence to the exclusivity of the petrodollar. China and India in the same bloc with GDP growth of 4.8 and 7 percent while the US lingers at less than 3 percent? Game over for the former Masters of the Universe, who really ought to read the writing on the wall and get on board.

Instead, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin imperiously demands a WRITTEN guarantee that BRICS won’t expand an inch westwards. Which should be taken as seriously as when the NATO MILITARY bloc promised not to advance an inch eastwards.

I can’t hear the BRICS reply through the cacophony of raspberries being blown, but we can guess what it is.

The US is still a major power. It will most likely eventually change course when Europe is rubble, and be welcomed with open arms by BRICS, leaving the UK in its dust as it did with Germany when it wrecked their cheap energy supply from Russia. Not forgetting dragging Australia into the AUKUS nuclear submarine debacle targeting its biggest trade partner, China. And then picking up the lost trade. Ouch!

Declining sharply under the force of geopolitical gravity, the US dollar has been knocked off its perch as the international reserve currency, and is no longer the only game in town. Bretton Woods is toast.

All that “printer go brrrr” racket, piling up $35 trillion dollars in debt and rising fast, is an increasingly precarious option for an imploding hegemon with nothing to back it up except raw aggression. Yo in danger, gurl. Markets aren’t the economy; they’re lipstick on a pig, concealing the peril you’re in. Or “Yellow Peril,” as you so often insist.

We are collectively suspended in the seconds after Wile E Coyote runs off the cliff edge and no-one’s looking down. But the suspense is killing us and we can’t defy gravity forever.

Where are the economic pundits pointing this out? Where are the politicians finding solutions? Where are the trade unions protecting their members?

Remember when the first train carrying goods from China arrived at Barking in East London in 2017? What a gloriously optimistic moment that was. Less than ten years after China saved the global economy from the USA’s 2008 Great Crash that threatened world recession, it signalled emergence from the crisis and the UK’s special place in the new prosperity.

Unfortunately, Starmer (rhymes with self-harmer) and his cohort would rather follow the Tories and drag us into poverty and war than join the real world out there. Here we are, nailed to the USS Titanic and firing torpedoes at our global lifeboat, growth engine and the new BRICS world.

Eight years ago the world was stable, inflation was low, none of you hated China. But then it caught up with the US who unleashed the power of propaganda and now look at you.

EDIT 18:45 24 Oct 2024: A couple of hours after posting the above, I’ve just heard that 159 out of 195 participating countries have agreed to adopt the new payment system currently known as “the BRICS Bridge” to replace the SWIFT system that allows the US to spank anyone defying it. Early days but it promises to be a more just system for the global south and the multipolar world order. Carpe diem – the little guys may get their chance to shine.

* Correction: Originally said South Africa which is, of course, already a core member.

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