BRICS Newcomers Egypt & Ethiopia Derail Summit Meant to Show Unity Against Trump
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A meeting of the top diplomats in BRICS, an anti-American commercial and security coalition led by China, reportedly ended on Tuesday with newer members of the group Egypt and Ethiopia refusing to sign a joint statement, sending a message of discord the more powerful original members of the group had hoped to avoid.
International leftist leaders have touted BRICS as a potential alternative to Western economic groups such as the G-20 and security coalitions such as NATO, though the countries do not enjoy any mutual security agreements altogether. Following the election of President Donald Trump, BRICS was touted as one of the most robust institutions to fight for globalism against Trump’s policies. Trump replied by threatening to impose a 100 percent tariff on BRICS nations if they pursued their goal of creating a unified currency to overthrow the dominance of the U.S. dollar.
The BRICS countries’ inability to agree on a joint statement, which would have presumably condemned President Trump and his tariff policies, indicates significant discord internally that weakens the organization’s prospects for providing a viable opposition to the American-led free world.
BRICS is an acronym representing the original members of the organization: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. In 2024, the group expanded, extending invitations to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina. Argentina explicitly declined to join following the election of libertarian President Javier Milei, while Saudi Arabia has refused for over a year to accept or reject the invitation outright.
While these countries represent the full members of BRICS, the group decided in late 2024 to invite 13 more countries as “partners,” but not full members: Nigeria, Algeria, Uganda, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Some of those countries, most prominently Turkey, complained that they were offered second-tier status rather than the membership they expected, likely in response to concerns from original members such as Brazil that too many countries in BRICS would complicate its ability to agree on critical issues.
The original countries themselves often find themselves at odds with each other on the diplomatic and commercial stage. China and India, for example, have fought military skirmishes against each other in the past decade and are actively competing for manufacturing supremacy. The group has also expressed minimal enthusiasm for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is split on its support for Israel or the genocidal terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza war.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, hosted a foreign minister summit on Tuesday that appeared to corroborate those concerns. The largest major gathering of the group since its leaders summit in Russia last year, many international observers expected the parties to prioritize condemnation of President Donald Trump — and, in particular, his reimagining of American tariff policies.
The Chinese state media outlet Xinhua highlighted concerns at the summit about the tariffs, emphasizing, “foreign ministers present at the meeting agreed that amid heightening geopolitical tensions and rising protectionism, the pressing priority is to uphold multilateralism.” Similarly, in his address to the summit, Brazilian Foreign Ministry Mauro Vieira claimed that BRICS provided a “strengthened out platform” as “Global South” nations aligned against the United States and the greater West.
“The post-World War II security architecture is showing signs of disarray. Armed conflicts are proliferating, often with devastating consequences for civilian populations,” Vieira assessed. “In this context, BRICS has a vital role to play in strengthening the principles of international law, supporting the peaceful settlement of disputes, and promoting the reform of multilateral institutions — especially the United Nations and its Security Council — to better reflect today’s geopolitical realities.”
Ideas about the future of the U.N. Security Council proved to be the undoing of that message of unity, however, according to multiple reports citing anonymous officials at the event. The South China Morning Post reported from the event that the main point of contention was a push by India, South Africa, and Brazil to include in a joint statement of support for their entry into the Security Council as permanent members. Currently, only America, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France retain permanent membership in the Council. China and Russia would have natural reason to oppose the expansion of those permanent seats, which would dilute their authority.
According to the Post, however, the main opposition to this position came not from the permanent members but from Egypt and Ethiopia.
“Egypt and Ethiopia objected to references that appeared to endorse these countries’ bids for permanent seats, with Cairo reportedly insisting that the BRICS forum was not the appropriate venue for such discussions,” the newspaper detailed. “The lack of internal consensus over the issue had already led to the failure of the group’s foreign ministers to produce a joint statement last year for the first time.”
Bloomberg News similarly reported that Egypt and Ethiopia were the two countries that opposed signing the statement, but specified that their concern was over South Africa specifically and not with India or Brazil receiving seats on the Council.
“Egypt and Ethiopia — two newer additions to the bloc named for original founders Brazil, Russia, India, China and later South Africa — balked at the group’s backing of South Africa for a permanent seat on the body,” Bloomberg reported, citing the Brazilian government.
An attempt was reportedly made to address those concerns with “watered down language” on the Security Council, but that attempt failed. The inability to produce a statement on the Security Council issue that all parties agreed with also resulted in BRICS producing no statement on Trump’s tariff policy. The unused draft the Post claimed to view included language expressing “serious concern” about “unjustified unilateral protectionist measures.”
The Post described the failure to publish a statement as a “rare breakdown” for the organization. Bloomberg similarly predicted that the breakdown in talks “bodes poorly for the group’s ambition to expand its influence on the global stage, filling the void left by traditional multilateral institutions that have long suffered from lack of consensus and paralysis.”
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