SEOUL, South Korea — BRICS, the informal group of nations that challenges Western primacy in the global economic and financial spaces, is muscling up in 2025, adding nine nations, including three major Southeast Asian economies, as partners.
On Jan. 1, 2025, BRICS admitted Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand — all democracies — as partners. The three countries are, respectively, the fifth-, first- and second-largest economies in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is also the world’s fourth-most populous nation.
The other newly added BRICS partner nations are Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Uganda and Uzbekistan, according to Chinese and Indonesian media.
The growing size of the group and its partners adds to the challenge BRICS presents to the administration of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened massive sanctions against BRICS if it actively pursues de-dollarization.
For a decade, BRICS centered around Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, but as of last year, went into expansion mode, offering nations of the Global South a place in the non-Western bloc. In 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joined as BRICS members.
The status of two other potential BRICS partners — Saudi Arabia and Vietnam — is unclear. And Argentina, under conservative President Javier Milei, halted its application to join the group.
BRICS has gained some high-profile attention. Last December, in a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump used the leverage provided by the American market — the world’s largest — to bang the table.
“We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy,” the president-elect wrote.
BRICS has no secretariat or charter but largely acts as a discussion body, complete with annual leader summits and related member institutions.
The organization had its birth in 2001 as a concept grouping four emerging-market economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China — hence “BRIC.” It was the brainchild of Jim O’Neill, an economist for investment bank Goldman Sachs.
The body did not become an official discussion group until an inaugural summit was hosted by Russia in 2009. South Africa subsequently joined in 2010, adding its “S” to the end, leading to the rebranded “BRICS.”
The rising import of the bloc has largely been driven by Russia, as President Vladimir Putin’s accelerates his nation away from the West.
Last year, he was able to show his populace that, despite Western sanctions incurred after his 2022 invasion of Ukraine, his country still has powerful friends as he hosted the BRICS Summit in Kazan.
According to a December 2024 commentary by the Council on Foreign Relations, BRICS advocates for greater representation in global organizations, coordination of economic policies, the promotion of de-dollarization and the creation of a financial system that competes with the current, Western-led status quo.
That status quo — the so-called Bretton Woods system of global monetary management — was established in the wake of World War II by North American and Western European allies. Though some aspects of that system would subsequently be derailed, two key institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, retain their primacy.
Two BRICS institutions — the New Development Bank, or NDB, and Contingent Reserve Arrangement — “are meant to mimic the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, respectively,” the Council wrote. “BRICS members hope that alternative lending institutions can invigorate South-South cooperation and reduce dependence on traditional funding sources.”
Despite considerable hyperbole among the anti-Western commentariat, the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency is not under threat in the near or medium terms.
According to the Atlantic Council’s “Dollar Dominance Monitor,” 58 percent of global trade is paid for with greenbacks. The next most-used currency, the Euro, is in distant second place, with just 20 percent.
The currency of the biggest BRICS economy, China, is nowhere close to the dollar. In 2023, the share of the renminbi in global foreign currency reserves dropped to 2.3 percent from a 2022 peak of 2.8 percent, the Council found.
BRICS’ focus has drifted away from per se de-dollarization and toward new cross-border payment mechanisms, but even those remain far smaller than the U.S.-led SWIFT in terms of transaction volume.
Even core BRICS members are on very different pages in terms of their outlook toward the global economy.
While Russia has joined Iran and North Korea as international pariah states in Western eyes, BRICS members China and India maintain major trade and investment links with Western economies.