17th BRICS Summit 2025 Deplores Trump’s Tariff Tactics
The 17th BRICS Summit 2025 (#BRICS2025) took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 6 to 7 July 2025. Chinese President XI Jinping shone by his absence and the task incumbed upon Premier LI Qiang to represent China. Russian President Vladimir Putin intervened virtually like he did in Johannesburg since he is still under an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court, to which Brazil is a signatory.
It was the first Summit after #BRICS expanded significantly and admitted several Partner member countries. The BRICS grew from 5 members to a 10-member BRICS+ by roping in Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the UAE. Saudi Arabia was also invited to join the party but is believed to be ‘still weighing its options’.
As such, the BRICS now represent nearly half of the world’s population and more than 40% of the global GDP. Viewed in some quarters as the Global South’s counterpart of the G7 dominated by the Global North, the absence of heavyweights Xi and Putin somehow slowed down the momentum.
The BRICS condemned the attacks on newly admitted member Iran as ‘a blatant breach of international law’ as well as the massive drone attack by Ukraine on Russian soil. The BRICS called for the creation and recognition of a Palestinian state as a solution to the Israelo-Palestinian conflict.
All BRICS countries deplored the ‘unilateral tariff and non-tariff barriers (NTB) that skew global trade and flout the World Trade Organization (#WTO) regulations’. US President Trump responded with a tweet threatening an additional 10% tariff on any country which adopt ‘anti-American policies’.
To hedge against protectionist measures, the BRICS can trade more with one another. However, trade statistics are hard to come by. It is clear that Russia had to rely on more trade with China and India to keep its economy afloat amidst economic sanctions from the West. However, there is still much room for improvement in terms of trade among other member and partner countries of BRICS.