🗣️ On the future of the BRICS+:

“In terms of the BRICS+ economic agenda, Iran is already part of it because they are part of the international North-South Transportation Corridor, where the main, the three main actors are Russia, Iran and India, which happen to be three members of the SCO, and if Iran gets into BRICS - three BRICS members. So you see how naturally these interpolations and interactions are converging,” Pepe Escobar, a geopolitical analyst and writer, told Sputnik.
🎧 Listen to more of Escobar’s analysis in our podcast New Rules (https://sputnikglobe.com/20230821/can-brics-dethrone-us-empire-1112754192.html)
👉 Watch the full episode of our show on YouTube (https://youtu.be/i4p7ROFwN0c) or Rumble (https://rumble.com/v39ylo5-can-brics-dethrone-us-empire.html)
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Leaders of the BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - are due to open a summit in Johannesburg on Tuesday where they will weigh expanding membership as some members push to forge the bloc into a counterweight to the West.
The currency, yes, a new currency, trade, military cooperation, AI, microchips, oil, everything, infrastructure, rail lines, shipping. This is a big, big deal. And the United States, I think, didn't get an invitation. The British didn't get an invitation. Germany is not welcome. Is the game over for Western hegemony? Well, the sign is on the wall.
For those of you who don't know: BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. And it started small, more than a decade ago, and now it has become the biggest threat to Western power that we have ever seen. And I'm not talking here about military power, which we'll come back to in a moment. I'm actually talking about economic power, oil power, computer power, trade power, the greatest weapons of all, not those bombs.
💥The U.S. dollar is at the top of the agenda, right in the crosshairs. This is Foreign Policy magazine's headline right now: a BRICS currency could do that.
The moment of de-dollarization could finally be here. Really? Is it true? After all, the discussion about abolishing the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency goes back to the 1960s. Here is the New York Times from 1968, which talks about France trying to secede from the U.S. dollar. Yes, French President Charles de Gaulle versus Lyndon Johnson. That's how old this is. That's how far back this goes. This is not new at all. But now we are at a tipping point.
The Brazilian president, Lula da Silva, says he wonders every night why all these countries have to base their trade on the U.S. dollar. Can you imagine having this thought every night before you go to bed? And what does he do? Well, they don't now. A gold-backed currency that forms the backbone of a new BRICS currency is being rolled out in earnest. Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa trade oil, computer chips, minerals and settle those transactions in a reserve currency that has nothing to do with the U.S. dollar.
To increase its influence, the BRICS is considering involving new members. Just look at the trade between the BRICS countries. There is a huge financial surplus. The BRICS countries have a trade surplus. Brazil just posted a record trade surplus. So why would they want to settle these transactions with U.S. dollars? It makes no sense at all.
Meanwhile, Europe's trade deficit has reached a new record: a trade deficit of nearly $500 billion. Which side would you rather be on? Of course, this won't happen overnight, and there are major obstacles to a BRICS currency. The biggest problem right now is that if Russia wants to import things from other countries not named China, they will probably have to settle it in U.S. dollars if they want to import those items.