The BRICS Summit is one of the events that will be moving foreign policy this year. From being a group of nations that were looking for a financial alternative to the problems of humanity, they have become the center par excellence in which monetary stability and firm development policies are found. Although the BRICS do not yet have a unified way of acting, it’s seen as an opportunity by the majority of state entities at a global level that do not have direct relations with Western globalist policies or that are not benefited by them.
Therefore, the group is more than just an economic mechanism; it’s a geopolitical actor that over time will have the capacity to challenge the West in all aspects. For now, President Putin has said that it’s not a military alliance or a unification with a purely political purpose. Russia's presidency within this group has marked the fundamental tendency towards a multilateralism that involves the concretion of global policies different from those seen until lately in financial matters and access to credits for development. What seems to be coming is more of the same, that is, the consolidation of a way of understanding the world not from the dollar, but from the creation of goods and the real weight as part of the commercial economy.

In this meeting of economic allies, the incorporation of other developing nations is expected, which will complement the economy of those that initially integrated the group. It's not only about the counterweight of the West, but about thinking of a different world after NATO, that is, a logic in which plundering through the arbitrary management of financial assets is not present, but rather access to credit in competitive and realistic conditions. In this regard, let’s recall that the BRICS is not a group like the CMEA in the past, but that its market mechanisms have the understanding of profitability, but from a perspective not contaminated by the vision of the dollar as a sanctioner. In this sense, it must be remembered how North American politicians themselves have spoken of the negative impact of the sanctions policy regarding the currency and how this has stimulated the growth of alternatives that affect the power of the Western elites. In other words, the dollar does not have all the specific weight to continue ruling the world and, although abandoning that zone can be traumatic, in the long term it is beneficial for those who follow it because it takes countries out of a toxic and insecure orbit where the market no longer rules but rather the capricious ideas of the groups in power.

The BRICS are a group that seeks to grow; the CMEA was for subsistence and to resist the West when after the Second World War a blockade was imposed on the emerging nations of the East. The BRICS seek a counterweight, but with the increase in the volume of GDP and exports, that’s why the limitations to enter the group are given by the economic numbers and not so much by the issue of geopolitics. In addition, the nations that make up this conclave are not yet in a position to send a challenge to the United States head-on, but rather seek to coexist as much as possible, but to separate themselves from the aspects of the financial system that harm them. That’s why it’s a measure of pure necessity, rather than one of open opposition to the international monetary regime. But the truth is that, taking into account the weight of BRICS economies, the future is moving towards this pole at an accelerated rate, at the same time that the West is deindustrializing and becoming a buyer of China's industrial wealth. The current situation of the United States, closed within its borders and with serious domestic problems, means that neither its politics nor its economy send clear messages to the world about its leadership. That’s something recognized by the right-wing politicians of that country, like Trump.

The situation with American elections is not only a variable that weighs on the construction of power in the new century, but it will also take its toll on the system of international alliances and treaties that are already a straitjacket for Europeans, for example. Beyond the wars and the defense budgets, NATO is a mechanism of domination that’s proving to be obsolete and expensive for the globalist spheres in the West. Countries like Poland are increasing their military budgets in the face of imminent cuts in Pentagon funds and anti-Russian paranoia among the country's ruling classes. While Western media praised the Warsaw government's measures to increase arms spending, in reality this detail is only evidence that Europe is seeking security and sovereignty in itself and away from the United States.

The summit is going to demonstrate the possibility of a multipolarity in which military arsenals do not count but the number of economic growth and, therefore, paradoxically, the way in which the BRICS understands the political question is more within the canons of the classic market of exponential development and not within the framework of the globalist powers that are on the threshold of decline.

When these events happen, we will be very close to the American elections where two well-formed sides are fighting over power. In reality, each of the projects are ideas that are challenged by the reality of a multipolar world that has been imposed first through the economy and now from the logics of integration that don’t depend on the accumulated favoritism in the order of Western globalist ideas. Russia leads an awakening of the old empires in which there’s not just a possibility of growth, but it implies a renewal of the system even within the logics of capital.

If Kamala wins, what can be expected is more opposition to the BRICS, in an unsuccessful way, in which neither the integration nor the strength of the nations that are its pillars will be stopped. If Trump wins, an extremist and unpredictable line of foreign policy marked by chauvinism and irrationality will be drawn, which in truth is another variable of decadent and violent Anglo-Saxon globalism. The BRICS in any case has everything on its side, including deterrence from the weight of its main powers. Anyone who believes that the world as it was known in the last century will continue is mistaken. In reality, we are on the verge of a restructuring of powers that requires a new global social pact and renewed governance, which cannot be achieved without the presence of those who can set the economic pace in the not-so-distant second half of this 21st century.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff