Brics virtual rally falters as members appear leery of exacerbating US trade war

view original post

Members of the Brics nations logged into a virtual summit on Monday, convened by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, intending to take a defiant stand against US President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war.

Instead, the quickly assembled outing became an exercise in caution, as the bloc’s heavyweights, Brazil and India, sought to steer clear of further enraging the “America-first” leader.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a founding Brics leader, skipped the meeting, sending Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in his place in a signal of a careful balancing act with Washington, as Trump has made no secret of his anger towards the bloc.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

Jaishankar, a seasoned diplomat, embodied this balancing act on screen. “Increasing barriers and complicating transactions will not help, neither would the linking of trade measures to non-trade matters,” he declared in a subtle jab at Washington’s tariff tactics.

He quickly turned inward, pressing Brics partners to address India’s ballooning trade deficits – like the US$99 billion gap with Beijing last year.

“Brics itself can set an example by reviewing trade flows among its member states, where India is concerned, some of our biggest deficits are with Brics partners, and we’ve been pressing for expeditious solutions,” he said, without naming China.

According to Mihaela Papa of the MIT Center for International Studies, “India is recalibrating its strategy, and Modi’s absence buys it space”, as Trump is “less convinced” than former President Joe Biden of India’s contributions to US interests.

She added that Jaishankar’s remarks signalled “caution” – both in India’s approach to Trump and in its trust towards other Brics members – noting that as India prepares to chair the bloc in 2026, its relationship with the US could shape the group’s direction.

Sarang Shidore of the Quincy Institute, a Washington think tank, said the question is whether the “gentler tone” will find takers in the US, which seems to be in “no mood to pull back from its aggressive speech and action toward New Delhi”.

Political pundits were expecting fireworks, especially after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit a week earlier, where images of Modi laughing with President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin went viral, angering Trump.

In a social media post along with a picture of the three leaders, Trump declared that the US had “lost” India to “deepest, darkest” China. Within hours, Modi posted on X that US-India relations remained “very positive”.

India and the US have failed to reach a tariff agreement, with Trump imposing a 50 per cent levy on Indian imports over Russian oil purchases and what he calls India’s unfair trade practices.

Modi is unlikely to visit the US for the UN General Assembly later this month, and Trump’s expected trip to New Delhi this fall also appears uncertain as trade talks remain stalled.

Trump has been especially tough on Brics, a bloc of 10 emerging Global South economies, since taking office in January.

Last week, he said if India wanted fewer tariffs it should “stop being a part” of the grouping to support the US dollar.

He has also threatened 100 per cent tariffs on all Brics countries if they pursue de-dollarisation, which he views as a direct challenge to the dollar’s global dominance.

For India, the US’ largest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding US$190 billion in 2023, these tariffs threaten key export sectors like pharmaceuticals, textiles and IT, prompting New Delhi to balance its Brics commitments with strategic ties to Washington.

While New Delhi was hedging its bets, Lula used the summit to sharpen his call for unity within the bloc and to present Brics as a counterweight to unilateralism.

Although he alluded to the US with veiled criticism of “the accelerated and irresponsible dismantling of the order created in 1945”, Lula avoided naming Trump directly.

The Brazilian president, who has often lambasted Trump in recent months over his 50 per cent tariffs on Brazilian goods, struck a different tone.

He called the Alaska meeting between Trump and Putin “a step in the right direction” and urged “realistic solutions” for the crisis in Ukraine, while again pitching the “Group of Friends for Peace” launched by China and Brazil as a possible channel for negotiation.

Instead of focusing on a coordinated, direct attack on Washington’s trade policy, he then shifted his speech towards multilateral reform, casting it as the “only safeguard against the erosion of global rules”.

Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva shakes hands with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a ceremony at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia in July. Photo: Reuters alt=Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva shakes hands with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a ceremony at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia in July. Photo: Reuters>

A senior source close to the Brazilian president told the Post the softening of anti-Washington rhetoric was deliberate, as Brasilia searches for a tone that will also shape Lula’s participation in the UN General Assembly at the end of September.

The aim, the source said, is to criticise US measures while avoiding direct confrontation with Trump.

Lula urged Brics members to arrive united at the World Trade Organization ministerial in Cameroon next year, warning that key principles of the trading system were under threat.

One of them is most-favoured-nation treatment, the rule that requires members to extend any trade concession to all partners equally.

“We have the legitimacy to lead the refoundation of the multilateral trading system on modern and flexible bases,” he declared.

The gathering in March will test whether emerging economies can push reforms while facing a Trump administration that is openly hostile to the global trade body.

Lula framed Brics as a bulwark against unilateralism and sanctions, highlighting complementarities in agriculture, energy and technology. Integration, he argued, could offer “a safe option to mitigate the effects of protectionism”.

To this end, the Brics’ New Development Bank, he added, will be central to “a just and sovereign transition” and should grow as a counterweight to Western financial institutions.

“The Global South can put forward another paradigm of development and reject a new Cold War,” he declared, adding that Brics is now already the “defender of multilateralism”.

Yet even Lula’s call for a stronger Brics could not mask the bloc’s divisions, with India in particular wary of a direct confrontation with Washington.

This friction, coupled with Trump’s broader warnings to Brics, has set the stage for heightened geopolitical and economic tensions, testing the bloc’s unity and global influence.

Sourabh Gupta, of the Institute of China-American Studies in Washington, said that while Jaishankar is usually more forthright, he appeared restrained this time.

“If the government of India’s policy is to play it softly-softly on the US front after the Tianjin India-Russia-China optics, it stands to reason he would hew to the larger policy position and mute some of his sanctimony,” he said.

Alexandre Coelho, coordinator at the geopolitics centre at Observa China in Rio de Janeiro, said both Brazil and India are constrained by their deep economic ties with Washington.

“The structure of commercial, financial and technological interdependence with the US, together with domestic pressures for macroeconomic stability and jobs, imposes clear limits on the tone and the menu of retaliation,” he told the Post.

Coelho argued that these structural constraints push Brasilia and New Delhi towards a mix of normative rhetoric and regional or multilateral “shock absorbers”, rather than direct sanctions or symmetrical retaliation.

That stance, he added, reflects “not weakness but a pragmatic effort to shield domestic economies while keeping diplomatic bridges open”.

The Brazilian analyst said India’s complaints about trade imbalances within Brics will also continue to make it difficult to forge a common front against Trump’s tariffs.

“The anti-protectionist agenda will compete with intrabloc frictions like deficits, technology, border disputes, and that will inhibit a robust joint response,” he said.

As for Lula, Coelho described the softer rhetoric as a calculated choice. “It maximises room for manoeuvre. He denounces tariffs, avoids burning bridges with Washington, and underlines the narrative that Brics is a solution, not a confrontational bloc,” Coelho noted.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.