Eleven flags, one question

BRICS meets in New Delhi on Saturday for its 18th summit, grown from four founders to eleven members, all weighing how to build an alternative to the American-led order.

Trump opened a door

Washington's retreat from its postwar leadership role handed the bloc an opening. The catch is that India, China, Russia and Brazil want different things once they walk through it.

“Its ambitions remain constrained by an inconvenient fact: India, China, Russia and Brazil do not align particularly well.”

India hosts, carefully

Modi wants a productive summit that doesn't annoy Washington, which he still treats as a counterweight to China. India and Brazil have both blocked a common BRICS currency and fresh lending to Russia.

Xi's roadshow rolls on

After Kyrgyzstan and Egypt, and before a White House state visit, Xi wants Delhi to show China as the predictable option. His target: the dollar, via renminbi trade settlement and linked digital payments.

Everyone else's agenda

Russia wants cover for a stalemated war in Ukraine. Brazil wants trade ties, shadowed by an election that could pull it out. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are sending deputies, not their leaders.

The math doesn't add up

Russia and Brazil export energy and want high prices; China and India import it and want low ones. Add US allies like the UAE and Indonesia inside the tent, and the bloc checks itself.

“All of them want to hedge against dependence on an increasingly unpredictable America.”