All in all, is the upcoming counter-US summit in Brazil destined to be just another BRICS in the wall? Xi don’t need no education …
For those who don’t know about this effort to counter Western dominance in capital and currency, BRICS formed in 2009-10 as a brainchild of Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov. A handful of other nations take part in this economic association, Brazil perhaps most prominently, but it is largely driven by Russia and China. It has aspirations to form a counterweight to Western economic and diplomatic power, and even some Western institutions see it as an inevitable challenger to the dollar’s status as the dominant trading currency.
One might think that the sudden US shift to punitive tariffs in trade might make BRICS even more attractive. Instead, the leaders of its two driving force countries won’t bother to attend this year’s summit in less than two weeks. Vladimir Putin supposedly worries that he’ll be arrested if he shows up … in Brazil?
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not travel to next week’s BRICS summit in Brazil because of an outstanding arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday.
The ICC issued the warrant in 2023, just over a year after Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, accusing Putin of the war crime of deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. …
“This is due to certain difficulties, in the context of the ICC requirement. In that context, the Brazilian government could not take a clear position that would allow our president to participate in this meeting,” Ushakov said.
Come on, man. As Reuters points out, Putin didn’t worry about an ICC arrest warrant when he went to Mongolia last year, even though they are also an ICC signatory. Leftist Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is not going to arrest Putin while traveling for diplomatic purposes, or ever. Inasmuch as Brazil’s leverage through BRICS depends on Putin’s participation in the coalition, da Silva needs Putin fully committed to the project. He’s not going to arrest Putin under any circumstances, except perhaps hug him too long on the tarmac in gratitude.
Putin will make a video appearance, at least, almost literally phoning it in. Xi Jinping will ghost the BRICS summit entirely, sending a toady instead:
President Xi Jinping will miss a meeting of BRICS leaders in Rio de Janeiro, according to a Brazilian official familiar with the matter, marking the first time the Chinese leader has skipped the summit since taking power.
China has informed Brazil that Xi will be represented at next month’s huddle by Premier Li Qiang, according to the government official, who requested anonymity as the information isn’t yet public. Li previously filled in for his boss at the Group of Twenty summit in India in 2023.
Beijing blamed a scheduling conflict for Xi’s absence, people familiar with the matter told the South China Morning Post, which first reported the news.
A scheduling conflict? Did Xi have a mani-pedi set up for July 6? BRICS is one of China’s most prominent efforts to compete against the US in particular. Bloomberg seems amazed by this explanation, too:
Xi’s absence could undermine his efforts to use the BRICS bloc to expand China’s global influence and build an alternative to the US-led world order. The summit would have also given the Chinese leader his first chance to sit down with Iranian officials since the war with Israel began, after the Islamic Republic joined the bloc in 2024.
Exactly. China has a famously nuanced sense of diplomacy as well, which means they don’t make moves like this on whims. Every step they take is freighted with meaning and consequence. Bloomberg suggests that the guest-of-honor treatment Brazil has afforded India’s Narendra Modi after the BRICS summit may have offended Xi, but that’s a laughable explanation. Xi has much bigger fish to fry with BRICS than being Queen For A Day.
So what is the explanation? It seems as though both Putin and Xi have less enthusiasm for the BRICS project than usual, which seems counterintuitive after Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Or perhaps not; they may be realizing that Trump intends to play hardball against those who use trade as a weapon against the US and want to step back and assess the consequences of challenging American financial dominance.
China on Friday pledged to approve export applications for rare earths to the U.S., potentially easing a major irritant in the countries’ trade negotiations that has also become a source of deepening concern for American manufacturers.
China’s Commerce Ministry, in a written statement carried by state media, appeared to confirm details of a deal alluded to by President Trump hours earlier, with Beijing promising to “review and approve eligible export applications for controlled items in accordance with the law.”
Curious indeed.
