MINISTER of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola (left) greets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting held in New Delhi on May 14. India will host the BRICS 2026 Summit.
Ashraf Patel
The ongoing disruption of Trump 2.0, including trade and energy wars that are choking supply chains, is reverberating globally and regionally. An estimated 60 million citizens have been pushed below the poverty line, with millions of jobs lost in the past few months.
The Trump-Xi summit in Beijing this week will impact the global economy as the two giants commence strategic dialogues that will set the tone for trade, investment, and technology, and address complications on the big, intractable issues in the year ahead.
As the BRICS Plus bloc prepares for its 2026 summit, these issues loom large. Aside from energy and tariff shocks, other challenges, such as WTO Governance, remain anaemic and a push towards ‘Free Trade Agreements ’ FTAs where asymmetrical power is leading to unfair trade and investment deals. In this context, the BRICS trade is deepening, but many challenges remain.
