By RUBEN BAUER NAVEIRA*
The Lula government ended up taking on the role of the West's “Trojan horse” to undermine the group's efforts.
1.
As expected, the BRICS summit was largely ignored by the mainstream media, if not belittled due to the “lack of concrete results” – as if the advent of a new financial architecture for world trade in contrast to the architecture in force since the end of World War II could be something sudden.
Furthermore, the current architecture chose a pre-existing currency of a single country, the US dollar, as the world reserve of value, thus inevitably leading to the hegemony of the United States (unipolarity), while the new architecture, in compliance with the principle of multipolarity, cannot be hegemonized by any country, which makes the undertaking extremely complex.
But there were results in Kazan, and they were significant.
Let us start with the results of a “concrete” nature. Great strides have been made towards the effective implementation of systems such as BricsBridge, to interconnect the central banks of member countries so that their national currencies can be used in international trade, and the BricsPay, an alternative international payments platform to the Western-designed and controlled SWIFT system.
Initiatives were also launched to create the BricsClear, a common deposit and settlement infrastructure; a BRICS reinsurance company; and an in-house credit rating agency (rating). No less important, a grain exchange will be created, as a precursor to exchanges for all others commodities, in which buyers and sellers will be able to negotiate with reference prices, for the first time, set outside the dollar, in a digital currency yet to be created.
None of these initiatives will be binding on the individual member countries, i.e., membership will be voluntary, which was a clever solution to the problem of unanimity (decisions by consensus). Thus, China and Russia will be free to “step on the accelerator” in implementing the new architecture, bypassing any potential resistance from the “Trojan horse” countries (more on this later).
Naturally, trade balances between countries will still be in dollars, but there may already be a significant reduction in their use: let's suppose that, in the trade balance between countries A and B, country A imports X dollars from country B, while country B imports 2X dollars from country A. Up to the amount of X (i.e. two thirds of the total volume of traded value) everything can be paid with national currencies, while country B will still have to pay country A in dollars for the other half of its imports.
Now consider the following microregion of the world: Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, India and China. They are all neighboring countries, with significant trade between them. Add to this the fact that this region is the best served in the world by the multimodal logistics provided by the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, and what we have in our hands is an excellent “pilot” for the de-dollarization of world trade. If we add to this microregion other countries on the coast of the Indian Ocean, such as Iran, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the pilot takes on exceptional proportions, allowing us to foresee a significant expansion of trade between these countries.
Effective implementation of all the initiatives decided in Kazan will only provide the basis for a massive de-dollarization of world trade within a timeframe that cannot be foreseen, but which, at a “natural” pace, can be roughly estimated at between five and ten years. It is possible to foresee with certainty that, during this period, growing tensions in the world and increasing pressures from the Empire will occur, which, if they lead to new geopolitical crises (wars), will have the effect of accelerating, by force majeure, this implementation period.
A sober summary can be found in this testimony by Frenchman Arnaud Develay, specialist in international legislation.
2.
Let us now move on to the results of a, let’s say, “psychoglobal” nature.
At the initiative of India, India and China reached an agreement to keep their territorial border disputes frozen indefinitely, so that they could fully dedicate themselves to economic cooperation. Until now, India had been a hesitant partner in the de-dollarization process, and a country that “vacillated” between the Western and BRICS spheres of influence. This initiative by India signals that the hesitation phase is over, and that India will now join forces more firmly with Russia, China, South Africa and other partners in implementing the new initiatives.
But the most pleasant surprise of the summit was the unexpected, and apparently profound, “icebreak” between Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia and President Aliyev of Azerbaijan, two countries that until then had been at war – of course, the perspicacity of the Russian organizer of the summit in seating them side by side counted a lot.
See also this video.
After decades of failure by the United Nations to contain the proliferation of conflicts around the world (such as in Iraq, Libya, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Haiti, the African Sahel and others), the BRICS summit came as a breath of fresh air to clear a tense atmosphere, signaling the advent of a new era for understanding and cooperation between nations – especially because, unlike traditional forums created by the West, which legitimize as natural the imposition of the interests of some over others (invariably those of the strongest over those of the weakest), BRICS brings with it an unwritten principle of taking into account the interests of all.
Once again, thanks to the Russian organization, the round table format contrasted with the UN's pulpit-auditorium format. And Vladimir Putin revealed that the date of October 24 for the closing of the summit was not chosen at random, since it carries a symbolic meaning: it was on October 24 (1945) that the United Nations Charter came into force.
In the face of the failure of the UN model, the BRICS propose themselves as a rebirth of a community of nations, carrying a message of civility, cooperation, tolerance and openness, and of respect for the sovereignty of each country. In a world where the “masters” not only remain silent but are complicit and provide support in the face of yet another infamous genocide in the history of humanity, the BRICS’ message of welcome and hope is an even greater gain than the so-called “concrete” results of the summit.
3.
As for Brazil, the Lula government ended up taking on the role of the West's "Trojan horse" to undermine the group's efforts, perhaps alongside Saudi Arabia, which has so far at least avoided accepting the invitation to join the group.
Lula's absence in Kazan is supported by the medical ban on long-distance air travel. However, it is inexcusable that Fernando Haddad was the only minister of economy and finance from the member countries to have failed to attend the preparatory meetings and, worse, to have flown to Washington on the very day of the summit to fulfill other agendas. The country that took the lead in implementing the BRICS grain exchange is Russia, the largest grain producer on the planet. Shouldn't it be a priority for Brazil, the second largest producer (and the first in soybeans, corn and coffee), to jointly lead this initiative? It was also symptomatic that Brazil's representation in Kazan was in the hands of Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, who says, "If Putin comes to Brazil, we will have to arrest him."
The pressures that Lula may be subjected to should not be underestimated, and it is clear that the Lula 3 government does not do what it wants, it does what it can do. When Arthur Lira blackmails him, he does not do so in his own name, but in the name of the significant majority that the right has obtained in the Chamber of Deputies. And when, six days before Kazan, Lula receives the country's main bankers who leave the meeting praising the government, the limits to which Lula is confined in terms of his actions to build a multipolar world become clear.
However, even if it can be explained, this position taken by Brazil works against Lula's ambitions to go down in history as a great statesman recognized worldwide. For the BRICS, the bad news is that the Brazilian presidency of the bloc will begin now, and the good news is that it will end in a year.
It remains to be seen how Brazil vetoed Venezuela’s entry into the BRICS. The argument that the elections in Venezuela were not exactly “democratic” does not hold water, because Brazil did not restrict Cuba’s entry, where a single-party regime is in force and there are no presidential elections, much less any “alternation of power” since 1959. Of course, there is political participation in Cuba, which is democratic in its own way – but so is Venezuela. Brazilian democracy itself, with its majority of corrupt and corrupt parliamentarians perpetually reelected by force of secret budgets, PIX amendments and vote buying, cannot be considered qualitatively superior to Venezuela’s just because, on a formal level, our electronic voting machines guarantee the fairness of the vote count.
The argument that Venezuela “does not contribute to peace” (in the words of Celso Amorim) is also unconvincing, given that it is well known that the Venezuelan political environment is so deteriorated that both the government and the opposition do not shy away from all sorts of violent and anti-democratic measures, and use the electoral process as a mere pretext to perpetuate themselves in power (government) or to seize it by any means (opposition).
There is no doubt that the Brazilian government has its legitimate reasons for not recognizing Maduro's electoral victory, but what is at stake is the advent of a multipolar world, of which Venezuela is a very important player. Prioritizing a local issue over global interests is short-sighted, to say the least – it is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Finally, Nicolás Maduro was in Kazan, but not as a “gate-crasher” as the Brazilian press wanted to make it seem, but rather as a guest of Putin, who made it very clear that Venezuela only did not join the group due to the Brazilian veto, and that he welcomed Maduro in a particularly vehement manner (video) – and Xi Jinping’s welcome to Nicolás Maduro was no less warm.
Nicolás Maduro took his seat at the leaders' round table, from which he took due advantage.
4.
To conclude, a picturesque episode. A particularly good-humored Vladimir Putin decided to make a joke, a joke or a joke (call it what you want, but I refuse to call it “trolling”) and ordered the design and printing of what would be “the new BRICS currency”, replacing the dollar:
Well, isn't it true that not a few people in both mainstream and alternative media didn't fall for the trick, and believed for a few moments that he was serious, until they realized how embarrassed they were? This is a depressing world, where you can't even get away with mischief anymore...
*Ruben Bauer Naveira He is a pacifist activist. Book author A new utopia for Brazil: Three guides to get out of chaos (available here).
This article is a continuation of the previous, published just before the BRICS summit in Kazan.
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