Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are the founder members. Huge economies and massive access to resources. They're due to meet in August this year. On the agenda is a new international currency - fully backed by gold or precious metals. The old 'gold standard' we used to have. Of course the mighty US Dollar is not backed by anything at all. It's completely imaginary. Item 2 is the accession of new member countries to the group. There are a lot of applications. A lot! 1. Argentina 2. Algeria 3. Afghanistan 4. Bangladesh 5. Bahrain 6. Belarus 7. Cormoros 8. CUBA! 9. DR Congo 10. Egypt 11. Gabon 12. Guinea Bissau 13. Indonesia 14. Kazakhstan 15. Iran 16. Mexico 17. Nicaragua 18. Nigeria 19. Pakistan 20. Saudi Arabia 21. Senegal 22. Sudan 23. Syria 24. Thailand 25. Tunisia 26. Turkey 27. United Arab Emirates 28. Uruguay 29. Venezuela 30. Zambia That's a total GDP that dwarfs the G7 by the way. This is going to be a big step in the decline of the US empire and its global clout over the next decade or so.
Also, since we're not part of the EU anymore, we could apply to join. The USA is bankrupt anyway. Trillions in debt. We don't want to sink with the dollar do we?
There is definitely a shift in power and that may be good for the World in the long run. The USA has been a destructive and often malign influence. In the short term, if it makes Countries timid about criticising Russia or China, that will be unfortunate.
I can’t see China being any worse than the US, who have had a forever war approach to foreign policy under every President bar Trump over the last forty years. If it wasn’t for the fact that they are our bullying big brother Ally, I don’t think we would see much about them that would attract us, if we were looking at them, from the outside, with equal skepticism to that with which we view other potential super powers. The EU is even worse, with its 19 Century view of world power. At least the US has an outlook that was formed in the last eighty years. I can’t see China, or any other power (are you seriously suggesting Russia as a dominant world power?) looking to use subjugation, as that model has always led to short term power, and the East always seems to have a less temporally driven approach to things. I am optimistic that what is to come will be better than what is currently the norm. Though there may be much pain getting to the good bit. The sooner the US pulls back on it’s meddling and starts focussing more on trade with its “enemies” the better. A Trump like President, who has no use for war and a love of trade and business, would allow the US to continue with grace, but the current corrupt US elites are determined to die a schizophrenic death, fighting proxy wars to maintain power that causes pain to everyone on this earth. I can’t help but feel that a huge rejection of US leadership is coming (necessitated by the increasingly absurdist nature of the US government) and a more favourable, though needfully cautious, view will be given to the alternatives. I don’t hold with the idea that we can’t go on without a US, because America is currently proving that we can’t go on with them.
Didn't the world's biggest economies 'drop' the gold because it was a very inefficient/costly method (storage, security, cost of liquidity and compliance) and nobody walked into a bank asking for a "...pound's worth of gold - it's my right..." ISTR that the last economic superpower to announce a gold back currency DAESH/ISIS?
Not to mention that trading in Russian finances is currently suspended. If the EU wasn't so reliant on their energy and the world wasn't so reliant on Chinese industry we'd be in a better place.
BRICS Summit agrees the entry of SIX new countries to the group: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates Iran. They will become full members from 1st January 2024. The group now represents 42% of the world's population, 23% of global GDP and 18% of trade. A total of 40 (count 'em) countries applied for membership, but only these 6 have been taken on for the moment. There will be a further round of membership acceptances soon....
Noooo. Cuba got turned down along with 34 other applicants. For the moment at least. India is worried about upsetting the US by being too anti-west. China insisted on Iran and Egypt apparently. Putin attended the meeting by video link and then his voice came out really strange - like weird robotic. God knows what happened there. I think it was Boney M who first observed: Those crazy Russians....
That's an interesting interpretation as I heard* it was Brazil and India who don't want to pivot 'away' from 'the West'. *From the guy who invented the term BRICS - he also maintained that the 'S' (South Africa) should be dropped due to the size and fragility of its economy.
Ra ra Vlad Putin There lived a certain man in Russia not so long ago He was small and mad, in his eyes, a flaming glow Most people looked at him with horror and jeers But to Moscow gymnasts , he was such a lovely dear China's probably eyeing up more rare earth metal and Lithium reserves.
The USA is on course to have a younger population than Brazil by 2035. As nations like it and China rapidly urbanise, and children go from free labour to weed the fields and herd the animals, to becoming a burden you have to send to school, birth rates fall. Happened already in China. The US has the advantage (despite the rhetoric) of being willing and able to import 100,000s of young people to boost the workforce. It has huge resources of private capital, and a technological advantage over all other nations. Now that Biden has set the course for on shoring manufacturing. If that policy is maintained by the US for the next decade. They won’t be slipping behind any of the BRIC nations. The BRICs are going to fighting among themselves as India and nations like Vietnam catch up with the Chinese in manufacturing. With their cheaper labour costs. Wont be too long into the future, (my bet before 2033), that the US and Cuba come to a trade deal.
