By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
Narendra Modi welcomed Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to India this week for a BRICS summit that was supposed to be about trade and investment. It will not stay there. NPR News reports the leaders are meeting as wars in the Middle East and Ukraine test the bloc's cohesion, alongside rising tension with Washington.
According to Al Jazeera, the US-Israel war on Iran, Russia's war on Ukraine, and global economic strain are expected to dominate closed-door sessions. Ahead of the summit, Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and Putin both criticized the dominance of the US dollar in global trade, a recurring BRICS talking point that carries more weight this year given how sanctions have squeezed both Moscow and Tehran.
Xi's presence adds its own complication. Al Jazeera describes his trip as one made under the shadow of the same two wars, with global energy security — a subject made urgent by this week's Red Sea and Saudi pipeline disruptions — also on the agenda.
What the summit will not produce is a united front on those wars. BRICS has always been a coalition of convenience — economies with little in common beyond a shared interest in counterweighting Washington. That interest is real, but so is the strain: India has its own quarrels with China, and none of these governments agree on how the Ukraine or Middle East wars should end. Communiqué language, when it arrives, is likely to paper over disagreements rather than resolve them.
This account relies on Al Jazeera and NPR News reporting; no direct quotes from summit sessions have yet been made public.
FILED FROM SOMEWHERE WITH BAD COFFEE —
— Compiled from reporting by NPR News and Al Jazeera.
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