By Paul Jouvenet, essayist and consultant in international affairs. Eurasia Business News, July 6, 2025. Article no 1600.

The BRICS leaders are meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for a two-day summit starting Sunday, July 6. The summit is taking place amid significant global tensions and is marked by the notable absence of key leaders: both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are not attending in person. Xi has sent Prime Minister Li Qiang in his place, citing scheduling conflicts, while Putin is participating via video link due to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant that Brazil, as a member, would be obliged to enforce.

Key topics on the agenda include:

  • Armed conflict between Israel and Iran
  • The humanitarian crisis in Gaza
  • Trade tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump
  • Reform of global governance and multilateral institutions
  • Artificial intelligence and climate change, which are priorities for Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

The BRICS countries condemn the terrorist attacks on bridges and railway infrastructure in the Bryansk, Kursk and Voronezh regions. This wording was included in the text of the declaration signed by the participating countries at the XVII summit in Rio de Janeiro. The summit declaration also expresses hope for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.

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The summit comes as BRICS has recently expanded its membership, now including Ethiopia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, in addition to its original members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). This rapid growth has raised concerns about the bloc’s cohesion and its ability to act as a unified force in global affairs.

The leaders are expected to present BRICS as a defender of multilateralism, criticizing what they describe as “indiscriminate” U.S. trade tariffs and calling for reforms to Western-led global institutions. However, the absence of Xi and Putin is seen as a factor leading to a more moderate agenda and less confrontational stance towards the West, particularly as Brazil seeks to avoid provoking the Trump administration and mitigate risks of further U.S. tariffs.

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Brazilian president Lula, in his opening speech, emphasized the collapse of multilateralism and called for the group to promote peace and mediate conflicts, highlighting the adverse global scenario in which the summit is taking place. The summit is also expected to produce several joint statements and a final communique, though observers anticipate these will be cautious and less assertive on contentious geopolitical issues.

The BRICS countries continue to deepen cooperation in politics, security, economy, finance, cultural and humanitarian contacts, Russian president Vladimir Putin said. Recently, the association has expanded and includes the leading states of Eurasia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, he recalled.

“The BRICS countries account not only for a third of the world’s land area and almost half of the world’s population, but also for 40% of the global economy, and the total GDP in terms of purchasing power parity has already reached $77 trillion. By the way, according to this indicator, BRICS significantly surpasses some other groups, including the G7, which has only $57 trillion in GDP in PPP,” the Russian president said.

BRICS has established itself among the “key centers of global governance”, the association has many like-minded countries among the countries of the Global South and East, Putin added. This led to the creation of a category of BRICS partner states, which will allow building practical cooperation with all interested countries, he said. Now there are ten partner states of the association. The President of Russia believes that the BRICS countries represent different models of development, but all are in favor of equality, good-neighborliness, and also “strive to make a significant contribution to ensuring global stability and security, universal prosperity and well-being” – all this is in demand in the current difficult geopolitical situation.

The 2025 BRICS summit in Brazil is focused on navigating global instability, internal expansion challenges, and external pressures from the U.S., with key leaders absent and a cautious approach to divisive issues.

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The BRIC group, created by Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2006, has been joined by six states since its foundation. In 2010, South Africa became a member country, and the association was renamed BRICS. In January 2024, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia joined the organization. It was expected that from January 1, 2024, Saudi Arabia would also join the BRICS, but it took a pause in the accession process. Last December Thailand has accepted Russia’s invitation to become a BRICS partner country. Invitations to become partner countries were sent to 13 countries. This category was approved at the BRICS summit in Kazan held in October 2024.

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By 2030, the BRICS+ could together account for 40% of global GDP and about 45% of the population, with 3.5 billion people.

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© Copyright 2025 – Eurasia Business News. Article no. 1600.