Brazil’s President Lula da Silva convened a virtual meeting with BRICS leaders on Monday. The leaders from the 10-member alliance attended the online discussion in a show of strength. Only India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi skipped the meet, but it was attended by Foreign Minister S Jaishankar instead.

The bloc took a defiant stand against Trump’s tariffs and trade wars in an effort to safeguard its respective economies. In this article, we will highlight the key takeaways from the BRICS virtual meet.

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BRICS Virtual Meet: Key Takeaways

1. The BRICS group criticized Trump’s trade policies, but they appeared leery of exacerbating the situation.
2. While they assembled to exercise caution on trade, they steered clear of enraging the ‘America First’ leader.
3. S Jaishankar maintained a balancing act, saying “Increasing barriers and complicating transactions will not help, neither would the linking of trade measures to non-trade matters.”
4. The BRICS virtual meet mostly had a gentler tone and did not go all-out against Trump and trade wars. Everyone maintained caution as a harsh tone could invite further tariffs and make the situation tense.
5. There were no talks about trading in local currencies or avoiding the US dollar. They did not speak about de-dollarization, nor did they speak about the formation of a BRICS currency to challenge the US dollar.
6. The alliance members did not foresee any new trade deals among each other.
7. In conclusion, the BRICS virtual meet did not have much substance as the alliance played it safe.

It is not known what they intended to achieve from the BRICS virtual meet held on Monday. The development indicates that only Trump is being aggressive on the bloc while the 10-member group is taking a softer stance. Tariffs and trade wars are already affecting their businesses, and they are now taking the diplomatic route to ease tensions.