During September 12th and 13th of this year I had the privilege of participating in a brief forum conducted by India’s NewsX World on the 2026 BRICS Summit, as it was taking place, and of interacting with senior military, judicial and diplomatic personnel from various countries, including the Peoples’ Republic of China, The Union of South Africa and, of course the Republic of India. It was a very rewarding experience. The following are some of my observations on the summit, and its results.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi did a masterful job of balancing diverse interests and perspectives including those of three countries in active military confrontations, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, as well as beautifully dealing with endemic border friction between the host country, India, which currently holds the presidency of the BRICS, and the Peoples’ Republic of China which will assume the presidency during 2027. It seemed that Mr. Modi and Chinese President Xi were carefully laying the groundwork for strategic continuity among the BRICS community, a very welcome attitude.
The Unanimous Joint Resolution addressed numerous critical issues, including many down to earth pragmatic projects that touch the everyday lives of their citizens in areas involving health, livelihood, culture and human rights. There had been concerns that the increased membership of the BRICS, now comprising eleven full members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the UAE; alongside ten partner nations, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, would render consensus unlikely and consensus is required because, unlike the European Union or the United Nations, unanimity is the rule, sovereignty and equality being a pillar of the group. Of course, there was another possibility, that a forum more democratic and inclusive than that provided by the United Nations Security Council could, even if with divergent interests and goals, through compromise, consensus and real diplomacy among equals, attain social, political and economic objectives that have alluded older and more structured institutions, institutions where oligarchical constraints limit productive long term solutions. Seemingly, at least for now, the latter succeeded thanks to the collaborative efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
On the issue of dedolarization, the Indian perspective prevailed, perhaps because the European Union’s experience with the Euro has made BRICS members unwilling to follow suit, sovereignty in the European Union having become passé at best, but also because of two other important factors: first, India’s unwillingness to antagonize the United States, something with which a number of other members and partner nations concur, especially Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and now Bolivia; and secondly, because the BRICS countries have developed and are in the process of expanding fiscal solutions to the abuse of the United States dollar as the principal international means of exchange. Chief among such emerging modalities are BRICS Pay, central bank digital currency proposals and, bilateral agreements such as those in place between the Russian Federation and the Peoples’ Republic of China as well as Iran and, the New Development Bank.
- BRICS Pay is a collaborative cross-border payment system developed by the BRICS economic bloc to facilitate transactions using local national currencies while bypassing the U.S. dollar and Western-dominated networks like SWIFT. BRICS Pay functions as a cloud-based connector linking national payment systems (such as Brazil’s Pix or China’s CIPS) enabling retail (QR code-based) and business to business transactions directly in member currencies, removing the need for a U.S. dollar intermediary.
- Central bank digital currency proposals, under the leadership of India, seek to connect central bank digital currencies for smoother, dollar-independent cross-border tourism and trade settlements using blockchain technologies. The plan focuses on connecting existing national fast payment systems and sovereign digital currencies rather than creating a new single currency union. The initiative builds on the 2025 Rio de Janeiro declaration which encouraged efficient and interoperable cross-border payment mechanisms within the bloc in order to lower transaction fees and bypass multiple intermediary banks for businesses, exporters, and travelers.
- The BRICS New Development Bank already provides an alternative (albeit limited by capital constraints) for emerging and developing economies to the abusive controls imposed on loans through the United States controlled World Bank and International Monetary Fund. It aims to fund infrastructure and sustainable development across emerging economies, positioning its future around local currency financing, digital asset integration and expanded cooperation among diverse economic states of development. To date, the New Development Bank has provided alternative financing options for development projects across the Global South, having funded close to 100 projects totaling over $32 billion. It is currently primarily funded by the Peoples’ Republic of China but new members Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates could, should they chose to do so, vastly increase its current capitalization. An interesting indirect aspect of the existence and potential evolution of the New Development Bank may be the leverage it provides the BRICS with respect to making control over the World Bank and International Monetary Fund more democratic and their operations less intrusive, one of the goals set forth in the Joint Resolution.
Other very pragmatic proposals I found intriguing include the BRICS Global Value Chains Action Plan 2026–2030, an invoice discounting mechanism for trade finance; a dedicated micro, small, and medium enterprise digital platform launched by India during 2026 to connect users with access to knowledge, finance, and international markets; and, a micro, small, and medium enterprise cooperation portal and a startup innovation fund. However. to me, the most important aspect was the call to resurrect international law, virtually assassinated by Israel and the United States, and to reform major international institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund which have never met the needs of the vast majority of the world’s population (almost half of which resides in BRICS member nations), but have instead, represented oligarchic interests interested in looting the less developed world and maintaining traditional privileges.
The article by Pepe Escobar accessible through the following link shared below provides other interesting (although perhaps less optimistic) perspectives on what was a very important and well attended summit: https://geopoliticsprime.substack.com/p/history-on-a-roll-brics-yemen-hormuz?r=lwzkv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web. It is worth reading.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution. Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
