The leaders of the BRICS nations and their allies from the Global South gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 6 for the annual meeting, where they condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza, the US airstrikes on Iran and Ukraine’s drone strikes on civilian trains, but were notably silent on Russia’s war in Ukraine, in a leadership declaration.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the attacks on bridges and railway infrastructure deliberately targeting civilians in the Bryansk, Kursk and Voronezh regions of the Russian Federation on May 31, and June 1 and 5, 2025, which resulted in the deaths of several civilians, including children," the document says.

The BRICS leaders did call for a negotiated peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, but failed to condemn Russia as the aggressor in the war and steered clear of apportioning any blame for the conflict, suggesting the issue should be resolved by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly.

Members of the BRICS organisation are in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping's agenda to build a multipolar world order and end what they call the unipolar geopolitical regime dominated by the US.

“We reiterate our commitment to reforming and improving global governance by promoting a more just, equitable, agile, effective, efficient, responsive, representative, legitimate, democratic and accountable international and multilateral system in the spirit of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits,” the leadership declaration said.

US President Donald Trump lashed out at the BRICS ahead of the summit and warned that any country aligning itself with the BRICS and adopting policies that harm US interests would face an additional 10% tariff.

"Any country aligning themselves with the anti-American policies of BRICS will be charged an additional 10% tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy," the US leader warned on his Truth Social media platform ahead of the summit.

He has also threatened BRICS members that attempt to abandon the dollar as the main currency for exchange in global trade with punitive sanctions. Trump’s deadline for doing new US trade deals or facing the extreme Liberation Day tariffs is due to expire on July 9. So far only three countries – China, the UK and India – have done deals.

Iran meetings

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was a prominent guest at the summit and underscored the growing anti-American sentiment amongst Global South leaders. Araghchi met with multiple leaders, including those from Russia, India, Turkey and Brazil, on the sidelines in a show of what was probably more condemnation of the US’ backing of Israel than support for Tehran as it emerges from the 12-day war.

Iran joined the BRICS+ group in January last year and has since been joined by Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia and UAE. Argentina was going to join, but withdrew its application after Argentina’s President Javier Milei took office. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) remains a candidate country.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his Iranian counterpart Araghchi, and reiterated Russia’s offer to mediate in the conflict with the US over Iran’s nuclear development programme.

Iran’s presence highlights the attempts to build a non-Western non-aligned block based on the participation of the countries from the Global South. However, the BRICS are advocating global cooperation on the basis of all countries having an equal say, irrespective of how powerful their military or strong their economies are.

The New York Times (NYT) ran a piece over the weekend saying the so-called “Russian-Chinese-Iranian axis”, has proved to be a lot weaker than expected, but highlighted the East-West divide – a “them” and “us,” conflict that is evolving, with “us” representing the international rules based order – a view rejected by the BRICS members.

“I believe the only thing that unites these very different countries is not autocratic instincts or any ideology at all, but having been chosen as an enemy by the West and seeing it in its present state as essentially gone rogue. Also seeing themselves as being on the defensive,” says journalist and bne IntelliNews columnist Leonid Ragozin in a social media post. “The West’s (primarily American) appetite for a simultaneous conflict with them all naturally drives them together, but only to an extent that’s defined by specific circumstances.”

One of the initiatives launched at the meeting was an effort to create a new investment platform that will be supervised by the New Development Bank (NDB, formerly known as the BRICS Bank). The development of a new Multinational Development Bank that has no Western membership is an attempt to set up a rival to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, which the BRICS leadership see as tools of US hegemony.

“Russia has issued an initiative to create within BRICS a new investment platform that will take into account the New Development Bank. The carrying out of this development will allow us to create a new development bank and turn it into an innovative instrument for development that would not be affected by outside agendas,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the delegates.

Putin praises BRICS

The Russian president thanked his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, after the launch of the summit and took the opportunity to highlight the economic progress the largest Emerging Markets in the world have made in the last decade and a half since the term was coined.

President Putin was unable to attend the gathering thanks to the issuing of an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for his arrest in March 2023 on charges of kidnapping Ukrainian children. Brazil is a member of the ICC and a signatory to the Rome Statute, meaning it is obliged to arrest Putin if he enters the country.

"The BRICS nations not only account for a third of the plant’s ground territory and nearly half of its population. They also account for 40% of the global economy, with their aggregate GDP in terms of the purchasing power parity reaching $77 trillion, according to the IMF data for 2025. By the way, BRICS considerably outperforms some other association, including the Group of Seven with its $57 trillion, as concerns this index," he said at the BRICS summit via a video link, reports TASS.

"The main thing is that the BRICS nations continue developing cooperation in key areas of politics and security, economy and finance, cultural and humanitarian exchanges," the Russian leader stressed, adding that the expanded association includes leading countries of Eurasia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America and has "a really huge political, economic, scientific-and-technical and human potential."

Overall, BRICS now account for half of global growth and 45% of the world’s population. The G7 accounts for 29% of global GDP, according to Putin.

As bne IntelliNews reported, three out of the four largest economies in the world are now BRICS members and they continue to expand, while the leading Western economies continue to fall down the rankings, in PPP adjusted terms. Last year Russia overtook Japan to become the fourth largest economy in the world.

Trump trade deals

The BRICS summit has only served to highlight the US’ increasing isolation on the international stage and the growing cooperation of the Global South in contrast to the increased fragmentation of the West, due to the strains of the polycrisis, the war in Ukraine and Trump’s new economic paradigm based on his transactional multipolar world model.

Instead of getting foreign countries around the world to “kiss my ass”, US President Donald Trump's extreme Liberation Day tariff regime has netted only three deals from the over 90 deals it was hoping to cut; one of those included an embarrassing climbdown after China threatened an extremely economic damaging ban on the export of rare earth metals (REMs) to the US.

“Not a single actual trade "deal" was achieved. The US has reached three "framework" agreements with respectively China, the UK and Vietnam, but even with those, the US wasn't exactly negotiating from a position of strength where the other side were "ass-kissing" them (save, maybe, for the UK),” says political commentator Arnaud Bertrand. “In fact the framework agreement with China – by far the most consequential country – was adopted precisely because China retaliated to Trump's tariffs and banned rare earth exports, inflicting real economic damage and forcing the US to quickly negotiate a face-saving framework that restored Chinese exports while reducing American tariffs.”

“The US hasn't reached a single deal with any of its traditional allies and has instead only managed to thoroughly antagonise them,” Bertrand added.

As bne IntelliNews reported, the effect of Trump’s trade threats has only catalysed deeper trading ties amongst the extended BRICS+ members as they seek to reduce their exposure to the mercurial Trump administration.

“So basically, far from revealing, as Trump obviously seemed to believe, the strength of American economic dominance, the Liberation Day tariffs have accomplished the exact opposite,” says Bertrand.

Most notably, the EU is facing crushing duties of 50% on its goods imported to the US unless it, along with most of the rest of the globe, cuts a trade deal with the Trump administration by July 9.

Tariffs will return to the Liberation Day rates announced in April on August 1 if there are no new trade deals, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on July 6, setting a new deadline for the biggest US trading partners to do deals.

Trump said about a dozen countries would receive letters on Monday unilaterally setting a tariff rate, with more to come in the following days. Trump added he preferred those letters to negotiations, after a three-month pause on his most sweeping tariffs netted only three deals, rather than the 90 his administration promised.

"I think we'll have most countries done by July 9. Either a letter or a deal," he told reporters over the weekend. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, travelling with Trump, added confirmation that the rates will go into effect next month.