Members, Partners and Outreach invitees of the 17th BRICS Summit at Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil on July 7, 2025. Photo: Prime Minister's Office of India.
By José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez – Jul 10, 2025
From July 6 to 7, 2025, the 17th annual meeting of the group of countries known as BRICS took place in Rio de Janeiro. The meeting was attended by the founding members, new members, and associate members, for a total of 21 delegations, in addition to special guests. Together, these countries represent 51% of the world’s population and 40% of global annual production of goods and services, depending on the source consulted.
On the eve of the conclave, world public opinion was focused both on the endless Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people and on Tel Aviv’s aggression against its neighbors, both near and far, in the case of Tehran. From Washington, DC, new threats were issued, along with supposed calls for peace on both sides, but extensive military resources were also devoted to stigmatizing and intimidating immigrants.
Much of the corporate press in the so-called West gave little prior explanation of the significance of the new BRICS meeting, another group dismissed it as inconsequential, and the rest were quick to say that it was a meeting where no one wanted to upset the United States. But the facts proved them all wrong.
Almost since the emergence of the BRICS, this group has been considered to be making a significant contribution to the new architecture of international relations, at a different moment of greater respect and cooperation between nations, many of which have not been actors with decision-making power over the economy, trade, or international relations. Several observers have argued that the group has not become sufficiently institutionalized, that there are many differences of opinion among its members, and that some, although they are committed to what they call multi polarity, have close relations with the United States.
But the truth is that on the dates mentioned above, a statement was released by those gathered there, which ran to 38 pages and contained 126 paragraphs, reflecting the consensus reached on a wide range of issues of great importance on the international stage.
Almost as important as what was said in the document was what was not reflected in it, but which points to a new type of relationship between human beings and their official representatives. Brazil was responsible for organizing the event, but neither it, nor Russia as its predecessor for 2024, nor India as its successor for 2026, addressed the rest as hegemons, nor did they make speeches or call on others to agree with their points of view.
None of the BRICS members have military bases in the territories of the others to impose their will, they do not threaten to apply sanctions, nor do they have budget items dedicated to bringing about economic and social regime change in other territories.
Neither South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, nor Egypt insist that their development models, social organization, or laws are flawless examples of perfection. Each went to Rio, as they had previously gone to other capitals, with their baggage of imperfections, treating their neighbors with respect.
The New Development Bank, based in Shanghai, does not have as its main purpose the granting of hard loans to plunder the resources of debtors, nor does it advocate the reign of creditors. On the contrary, financing is accompanied by advice that allows for the correct use of funds.
Undoubtedly, a conclave of this kind in today’s world is unique, as could be the case with meetings of CELAC, the OAU, or the G77 plus China. Yes, we are referring to those multilateral organizations where neither the United States nor the main colonial powers within what is now called the European Union are present.
Perhaps what was discussed and agreed upon by the BRICS on this occasion was all the more significant because it took place just hours after the pathetic NATO meeting with “Daddy” Trump, a climactic moment in a relationship of vassalage in which the member governments of the militaristic organization ended up accepting without complaint the imposition of 5% of their budgets on military spending, which already lack the necessary resources to cover the social programs of their populations. In many cases, these military funds will be used to purchase obsolete technology with the Made in USA label.
While these are absolute truths for many observers, in the case of Cuba, what happened in Rio is exceptional.
This is the first time that a delegation from Havana has attended as a partner of the BRICS. Cuba’s acceptance in this capacity was perhaps a surprise to many, as it is not a country with significant economic resources, able to make major financial contributions or influence global energy consumption patterns. But the historical fact is that Cuba, with its insignificant economic record and heavy debt burden, was accepted by those who appreciated Cuba’s contribution to their independence, or to the development of their health resources, or the free education offered to thousands of their children, who at some point benefited from Havana’s good offices or mediation to survive a local or regional conflict, or who simply accepted Cuba as an equal when they still cannot explain the ability of its citizens to resist, not give in, and still be creative.
The presence of the Cuban delegation in Rio brought a variety of experiences and emotions, and even surprises. In an environment where there is talk of investments, loans, and projects, hearing the president of the New Development Bank, Dilma Rousseff, say that she feels indebted to Cuba might seem like motivational hyperbole. However, the former Brazilian president is well aware of the monetary and human value of the Mais Medicos program in her country, the same project that was supported by the WHO and PAHO, which was finally dismantled by a cheap Trump-imitating government.
Cubans read on the social media accounts of Indian Prime Minister Shri Narend Modi his impressions of his exchange with President Díaz Canel and, even more, his conviction about the number and variety of initiatives that can be established between two countries of such different sizes and political orientations.
Once the working sessions of the annual BRICS event had concluded, we read or heard analyses of its results that reflected more shadows than clarity. Many focused on the word used to refer to the genocide in Gaza as a group, questioned once again Venezuela’s still unresolved membership, or considered the condemnation of unilateral coercive measures to be insignificant.
But amid these distractions, a missile of insults was heard exploding in English: the concerns of the designer of the MAGA caps manufactured in the PRC. Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on all those in the BRICS or outside it who questioned the hegemony of the US dollar, even if the interest was simply to benefit their national currencies.
Something was wrong with the attempt to discredit the BRICS phenomenon. How was it that, if the meeting was of no significance, the emperor had been distracted from his daily routine to issue new threats and try to impose the tone that had just proved useful in his conversation with Brussels?
Perhaps Washington’s main fear does not lie in the economic and political capacity that the BRICS members manage to bring together, but in the perception that the rest of the world may have of them. At a time when the G7 and European Union councils are only able to commit ruling elites who are increasingly distant from the social base of their respective countries, the BRICS appear as a friendly option for African nations demanding the withdrawal of military contingents from the former European metropolises and for other countries defending their sovereignty with projects that are at least nationalist.
Possibly one of the factors that strengthens the BRICS most is the way in which they are attacked by a country that is increasingly divided internally, that renounces its multinational culture, that renounces partnerships in order to impose vassalage, that is more interested than ever in driving the economy through politics because it has ceased to be productive and competent, a country that is destroying every single rule and way of doing things that it sold to the world as a paradigm of what someone once considered a more or less democratic existence.
José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez is Director of the International Policy Research Center (CIPI) in Havana, Cuba.
