India Emerges As Diplomatic Winner At BRICS Summit: Michael Kugelman

The biggest achievement was getting a consensus that resulted in a joint declaration, and one that came on the first rather than the second day of the summit. This suggests that Delhi did most of the hard work in advance — another savvy move that deserves credit, because the members didn't have to spend the whole summit feeling burdened and distracted by the need to get the joint declaration out.

One could critique Delhi for releasing a statement that didn't mention the wars in Iran or Ukraine by name, but given the realities of the BRICS membership, it wouldn't be realistic to have it any other way. Likewise, the US wasn't named specifically, but again, given much of the membership's desire to avoid provoking Donald Trump, it wouldn't have been realistic to have it any other way.

I think the summit struck the right middle ground note. The declaration essentially laid out all that it thinks is wrong with the current global order, and called for reforms in the key institutions that drive that order. But it didn’t directly call out the US or propose any de-dollarisation or other initiatives meant to directly take on the US economy. That’s something that required concessions from the likes of Russia and Iran, and the fact that they agreed to them is another credit to New Delhi.

BRICS is limited by its own contradictions. It wants to position itself as an alternative to the institutions that dominate the current global financial order. But because so much of its membership, including the few that are hostile to the US, is reliant on the US dollar, BRICS has to be careful not to go too far in terms of how much it pushes back against the US dollar.

In that sense, what the summit pledged to do is prudent: Lean in on what’s already there (like the new BRICS Bank) and pursue more trade opportunities among the membership. This moves the needle forward on producing substantive new initiatives without doing anything that risks undermining the US dollar in the global economy.

India is a winner on the diplomatic front for getting a consensus and a summit declaration, despite chairing a grouping that's become more fraught with the addition of multiple sets of members that don't get along.

BRICS itself is a big winner. This is a grouping with many of the world's most significant actors outside the West, and one that the Global South, which is well represented in the BRICS membership, views as an increasingly influential entity that represents its interests and concerns on the global stage.

And the fact that the group announced a series of new initiatives in Delhi shows the world, especially its many critics in the West, that it's much more than a mere talk shop.

It's the closest thing the Global South has to a true global champion. Existing institutions that aim to advocate for the Global South, like the UN and top international financial institutions, are nonetheless dominated at the highest levels by countries outside the Global South. This makes BRICS close to unique, given that it's mostly a Global South membership — and many others from the Global South want to join — and given that because it operates based on consensus, everyone or close to everyone in it is involved in decision-making.

BRICS' utility for Delhi remains the same: It advances strategic autonomy because India uses it to balance its ties between the West on the one hand and the Global South and the broader non-West on the other.

India would not want to have to choose between BRICS and the G20; it considers both important for different reasons. That said, given current uncertainties associated with the Quad and India's relations with the US, India's embrace of BRICS is likely to grow stronger, and ultimately this will help BRICS itself as well.

It's all about maintaining solidarity and the need for a consensus. Directly mentioning Russia may have prompted Moscow to refuse to sign on to the statement. Linking the US by name to the criticism in the declaration about the war in Iran might have prompted the more pro-US members not to sign.

After all, the BRICS foreign ministers' summit didn't get a consensus or a declaration. India definitely didn't want to risk the most prestigious summit of BRICS under its chairship failing to get a consensus. So in that sense there was a need to be cautious.

Certainly, China, as the biggest economy in BRICS, benefits if the grouping looks to expand trade with its members. But the membership, especially its poorer members, will view intra-BRICS trade as more desirable than trading in the broader global economy, given the Trump tariffs and multiple wars and other shocks that impact them disproportionately. Intra-BRICS trade may not be ideal for them, but it does provide insulation for them from all the churn in the global economy.

This shows two things: first, much of the membership doesn't want to provoke Trump, who not too long ago threatened to slap tariffs on BRICS members that undercut the dollar. Second, BRICS itself is too reliant on the dollar to be willing to take it on. This is one of the fundamental contradictions behind BRICS, along with the fact that a small but determined minority of the membership wants it to be more anti-West than most of it is comfortable with.

The sanctions law isn't tied to BRICS, it's tied to the war in Ukraine and a wider US pressure campaign against Russian oil purchasers. I actually think the nature of the joint declaration, which avoided identifying the US by name, was one reason for the US silence.

There were some striking optics, like photos of Modi together with Putin and Xi. That has triggered Trump in the past. But in this case, the fact that Trump was planning a critical meeting with Xi soon may have compelled him to hold back.

The sanctions bill could end up being an own goal for Washington, as it will vindicate for the BRICS membership the need to work more together economically and financially to fend off global economic shocks that in many cases are being inflicted by Trump's policies.