The rising share and increasing membership of BRICS may have rattled Donald Trump into announcing that a common BRICS currency would invite the ire of the United States, but a Moneycontrol analysis shows that a BRICS currency would not have materialized given the imbalances in trade between countries and negligible trade with each other.
The BRICS’ share of global exports rose to 18.7 percent in 2021, compared with 16.2 percent in 2013 and 13.6 percent in 2009, when the grouping was established; however, analysis shows that countries have a negligible trade with each other if one excludes China from the grouping.
President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on countries if they planned to move ahead with the idea of BRICS currency.
For instance, Brazil’s exports to the BRICS economies, excluding China, have shrunk over the last decade. While BRICS accounted for 3.4 percent of Brazil’s trade with the world in 2013, the share declined to 2.3 percent in 2024.
Meanwhile, China’s share of Brazilian exports grew to 30.7 percent from 19.8 percent in 2013.
Similarly, while Russia’s dependence on China for its exports has increased, its non-oil exports to the rest of the BRICS economies have barely changed.