BRICS AT THE CROSSROADS: TURNING THE IRAN SANCTIONS CRISIS INTO A NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
There are moments in international affairs when history does not knock twice.
The present confrontation between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran may be one of those moments—not simply because of the geopolitical consequences of the conflict, but because of what the accompanying economic sanctions reveal about the architecture of the global financial system.
On August 23–24, 2026, the United States expanded sanctions against Iran and warned countries and companies maintaining economic relationships with Tehran that they could face consequences, including potential exclusion from the dollar-based financial system.
This is precisely why the BRICS countries must begin treating financial independence not as a distant ambition, but as an urgent strategic necessity.
The issue is bigger than Iran.
It is about whether the global economy should remain overwhelmingly dependent on one country's currency, financial institutions and payment infrastructure—or whether the emerging economies of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America can construct a genuinely multipolar economic system.
THE QUESTION BRICS MUST ASK
The question before BRICS is no longer simply:
"Can we create a BRICS currency?"
The more important question is:
"Can BRICS create a financial ecosystem in which international trade can continue even when one member is targeted by unilateral sanctions?"
That distinction is crucial.
A common currency is difficult. It requires monetary coordination, fiscal discipline, enormous reserves, confidence among member states and institutions capable of managing the currency.
But BRICS does not necessarily need to wait for a fully fledged common currency before beginning the process.
It can start with something much more practical:
a BRICS settlement system.
India's central bank has already proposed linking BRICS countries' digital currencies to facilitate cross-border payments, potentially reducing reliance on the dollar and traditional correspondent-banking networks.
That is the direction BRICS should accelerate.
BRICS ALREADY HAS THE ECONOMIC WEIGHT
BRICS is not a small economic club searching for relevance.
The bloc's own official data put its share of global GDP at approximately 39% on a purchasing-power-parity basis in 2023 following its expansion.
The Central Bank of Brazil describes the expanded group as representing approximately 49% of the world's population, 36% of global territory, 39% of global GDP and 23% of international trade.
These numbers demonstrate something fundamental:
BRICS possesses the market, resources, labour force and productive capacity necessary to become a major pillar of the global economy.
China brings enormous manufacturing capacity.
India brings a huge consumer market, technology, pharmaceuticals and services.
Russia brings energy, minerals, agriculture and strategic commodities.
Brazil brings food, agricultural commodities, minerals and industrial capacity.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE bring enormous financial resources and energy influence.
Iran brings energy, strategic geography and access to the Persian Gulf and Central Asian trade corridors.
Egypt provides a critical gateway through the Suez Canal.
South Africa provides an important gateway into Africa.
Ethiopia brings agricultural potential, population and strategic African positioning.
Indonesia brings a huge population, natural resources and a pivotal Indo-Pacific location.
Together, this is not merely a political grouping.
It is an economic ecosystem.
THE IRAN CRISIS EXPOSES THE VULNERABILITY
The current Iran confrontation demonstrates the power of financial sanctions.
When international transactions depend heavily upon dollar clearing, Western correspondent banks and financial infrastructure, Washington can exert enormous influence over companies and countries far beyond American territory.
That creates a structural vulnerability.
A country may have oil.
It may have minerals.
It may have food.
It may have factories.
It may have customers.
But if the financial channels through which buyer and seller settle their transactions are controlled by institutions vulnerable to American sanctions, the trade can still be disrupted.
This is precisely the vulnerability BRICS should address.
The answer, however, should not be an attempt to destroy the dollar overnight.
That would be unrealistic.
The better strategy is to create credible alternatives.
BRICS DOES NOT NEED TO "DESTROY THE DOLLAR"
This is an important distinction.
The dollar remains deeply embedded in global trade, investment, central-bank reserves and financial markets.
BRICS should therefore avoid making the mistake of announcing that it will immediately replace the dollar.
Instead, it should pursue a much more intelligent objective:
Give countries a choice.
If a Nigerian company wants to purchase machinery from China, why must the transaction necessarily pass through dollars?
If India purchases oil from Russia, why must the transaction necessarily be denominated in dollars?
If China buys Brazilian agricultural commodities, why must the dollar always be the settlement currency?
If an African country imports energy from a BRICS member, why should its banking system be exposed unnecessarily to sanctions originating outside the transaction?
The objective should be:
Dollar optionality—not dollar destruction.
THE BRICS CURRENCY SHOULD BE THE FINAL STAGE, NOT THE FIRST STAGE
There is enormous excitement surrounding the idea of a BRICS currency.
But a common currency is extraordinarily complicated.
Europe spent decades building the institutions that eventually produced the euro.
BRICS consists of countries with very different economic structures, inflation rates, monetary policies, exchange-rate systems and geopolitical interests.
Therefore, BRICS should not rush into creating a physical or conventional common currency simply for political symbolism.
Instead, it could build a three-stage architecture.
STAGE ONE: LOCAL-CURRENCY TRADE
BRICS members should dramatically increase bilateral trade denominated in their own currencies.
China-Russia.
China-India.
India-Russia.
China-Brazil.
China-Saudi Arabia.
India-UAE.
Russia-Iran.
Brazil-China.
And eventually Africa-BRICS trade.
Currency-swap arrangements can provide liquidity and reduce the need for dollars in bilateral commerce.
STAGE TWO: A BRICS DIGITAL SETTLEMENT UNIT
The bloc could create a digital settlement instrument—not necessarily a consumer currency.
Think of it as a BRICS Trade Settlement Unit.
It could be backed by a diversified basket of participating currencies and potentially supported by commodities and reserve assets.
Importantly, it would initially function primarily between banks, governments and approved commercial institutions.
It would settle trade.
It would not necessarily replace national currencies.
STAGE THREE: A TRUE BRICS COMMON CURRENCY
Only after years of successful settlement integration should BRICS consider creating a genuine common currency.
By then, the market would already have developed confidence in the system.
The common currency would therefore emerge from economic integration rather than political declarations.
THE NEW DEVELOPMENT BANK MUST BECOME MORE IMPORTANT
The New Development Bank is one of BRICS' most important institutions.
It should become the financial engine of the emerging Global South.
Iran's central-bank governor said in August 2026 that Iran would soon join the New Development Bank, demonstrating the growing importance of BRICS financial institutions to countries seeking alternatives to Western financial channels.
The NDB should expand financing for:
- Railways
- Ports
- Electricity
- Renewable energy
- Oil and gas infrastructure
- Mining
- Agriculture
- Manufacturing
- Digital infrastructure
- Telecommunications
- Water projects
- Industrial parks
- Cross-border transport corridors
But there is an additional opportunity.
The NDB should increasingly lend in local currencies.
A country should not have to borrow dollars to build infrastructure that generates revenue in its own currency.
BRICS SHOULD BUILD A FINANCIAL FIREWALL
This may be the most important proposal.
BRICS should establish a collective financial mechanism capable of providing emergency liquidity to a member facing sanctions or financial disruption.
Imagine a member country suddenly loses access to major international payment channels.
Instead of collapsing economically, it could activate a BRICS financial-support mechanism.
The mechanism could provide:
Liquidity + trade credit + currency swaps + emergency financing + commodity settlement facilities.
This would transform sanctions from a potentially devastating weapon into a manageable economic inconvenience.
ENERGY IS BRICS' GREATEST STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE
Energy may be the most powerful instrument available to BRICS.
The expanded bloc includes some of the world's most important oil and gas producers and consumers.
This creates an extraordinary possibility.
BRICS could develop an energy-trade settlement platform in which participating countries can purchase oil and gas using several approved currencies.
The result would not necessarily eliminate the dollar.
It would simply introduce competition.
A world where oil can be purchased in dollars, yuan, rupees, dirhams, roubles or a BRICS settlement instrument is fundamentally different from a world where one currency dominates energy settlement.
The current Iran crisis has already accelerated attention toward non-dollar energy transactions and alternative financial rails.
BRICS should learn from this moment.
GOLD CAN PLAY A ROLE
Gold should also be considered.
Not necessarily as a return to a rigid gold standard, but as a neutral reserve asset.
Gold has one enormous advantage:
It does not belong to any single government.
A BRICS settlement framework could therefore incorporate gold reserves as part of its reserve architecture.
This could increase confidence in the system without requiring every participating country to trust the monetary policy of another member.
BRICS CAN TURN SANCTIONS INTO A MARKET OPPORTUNITY
This is where the present crisis becomes particularly interesting.
Sanctions create economic distortions.
When one market is restricted, another market can become more important.
If Western companies withdraw from a market, companies from BRICS countries can potentially fill some of the resulting gaps—provided they comply with applicable laws and manage sanctions risks responsibly.
This could create opportunities in:
- Energy
- Petrochemicals
- Agriculture
- Fertilizers
- Pharmaceuticals
- Machinery
- Construction
- Transportation
- Mining
- Telecommunications
- Digital services
- Food processing
- Industrial manufacturing
The principle should be simple:
BRICS should not exploit suffering; it should exploit economic opportunity created by fragmentation.
The goal should be lawful trade, investment and development—not sanctions evasion.
AFRICA MUST NOT BE LEFT OUT
This is where the BRICS opportunity becomes particularly important for Africa.
Africa possesses enormous natural resources but often exports raw materials and imports finished products.
That structure must change.
BRICS countries need African minerals.
Africa needs BRICS capital, technology, infrastructure and industrial markets.
That is a potential strategic bargain.
Instead of:
Africa → raw minerals → foreign market → finished goods → Africa
the model should become:
African resources → African processing → BRICS investment → African manufacturing → global markets.
Nigeria, for example, possesses substantial deposits of lithium, tin, tantalum, iron ore, gold, zircon, ilmenite, monazite and other minerals.
The future opportunity is not simply to dig these resources out of the ground.
It is to process them locally and integrate African mineral production into global industrial supply chains.
That is where BRICS can become transformative.
THE REAL BATTLE IS NOT CURRENCY
Ultimately, this is not merely a currency war.
It is a battle over economic infrastructure.
Who controls payment systems?
Who controls international banking channels?
Who controls commodity pricing?
Who controls shipping insurance?
Who controls financial messaging?
Who controls critical technologies?
Who controls strategic mineral supply chains?
Who controls global investment?
Who controls the platforms through which international commerce takes place?
If BRICS wants genuine economic sovereignty, it must address all of these.
BRICS SHOULD BUILD ITS OWN PAYMENT NETWORK
The bloc should accelerate the creation of interoperable payment systems.
The technology already exists.
China has advanced digital payment infrastructure.
India has developed one of the world's most important instant-payment ecosystems.
Brazil has Pix.
Russia has developed alternatives to Western financial infrastructure.
Several BRICS members are developing or operating central-bank digital currencies.
These systems should become interoperable.
A Chinese importer should be able to pay an Indian exporter directly.
An Indian company should be able to pay a Brazilian supplier.
An African company should be able to settle a legitimate transaction with a BRICS partner without unnecessary dependence on dollar clearing.
The technology is increasingly available.
The political will is the missing ingredient.
BUT BRICS MUST AVOID ITS OWN INTERNAL WEAKNESSES
There is another side to this argument.
BRICS cannot become a credible alternative merely by opposing the United States.
It must become stronger internally.
The bloc has enormous differences among its members.
China and India have strategic competition.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have their own geopolitical history.
Russia has conflicts with Western powers.
Brazil has different economic priorities.
African members have different development needs.
Therefore, BRICS must be built around economic cooperation rather than ideological uniformity.
Members do not have to agree on everything.
They simply need to agree that:
Trade should remain possible.
Development should remain possible.
Financial sovereignty should exist.
No single country should possess unlimited power over the economic lifelines of another sovereign nation.
BRICS' GREATEST WEAPON IS ITS MARKET
The most powerful thing BRICS possesses is not oil.
It is not gold.
It is not military power.
It is people.
Hundreds of millions of consumers.
Billions of consumers across the wider BRICS ecosystem.
Manufacturers.
Farmers.
Engineers.
Scientists.
Entrepreneurs.
Workers.
Students.
Technology companies.
Financial institutions.
Commodity producers.
If BRICS can integrate this enormous economic base, the bloc becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.
The world will trade with the market that offers the greatest opportunities.
THE UNITED STATES SHOULD NOT BE THE ENEMY
A mature BRICS strategy should not be built around hatred of America.
The United States remains one of the world's most powerful economies, technological centres and investment markets.
BRICS should compete—not isolate itself.
The objective should be a multipolar economic system in which America remains powerful, Europe remains powerful, China remains powerful, India rises further, Africa industrializes, Latin America expands its influence and the Middle East becomes a stronger financial and industrial centre.
Competition can actually strengthen the global economy.
The danger is not American economic power itself.
The danger is excessive concentration of economic power anywhere.
THIS IS BRICS' MOMENT
The Iran crisis has exposed something the BRICS countries have discussed for years:
financial dependence creates strategic vulnerability.
The answer cannot be endless declarations about de-dollarization.
It must be infrastructure.
Build the payment system.
Build the settlement mechanism.
Build the currency swaps.
Build the development bank.
Build the trade-credit system.
Build the digital financial bridges.
Build commodity exchanges.
Build shipping and insurance capacity.
Build industrial supply chains.
Build African infrastructure.
Build Latin American manufacturing partnerships.
Build Asian technology corridors.
And eventually, when the foundations are strong enough, build the common currency.
That is how a new economic order is created.
Not through speeches.
Through institutions.
CONCLUSION: THE WORLD IS MOVING TOWARD MULTIPOLARITY
The current confrontation over Iran may eventually end through diplomacy.
Sanctions may be lifted or modified.
Governments may change.
Wars may end.
But the lesson will remain.
Every country that depends excessively on another country's financial infrastructure carries a geopolitical vulnerability.
BRICS has an opportunity to convert that vulnerability into a historic project.
It should not seek to destroy the dollar.
It should seek to make the world less dependent on any single currency.
It should not seek to replace one hegemon with another.
It should build a system where multiple centres of economic power coexist.
It should not build an anti-American economy.
It should build a pro-competition global economy.
And it should not wait for another crisis.
The time is now.
The United States has demonstrated the power of financial sanctions. BRICS should demonstrate the power of economic cooperation.
If the BRICS countries can transform their enormous populations, resources, markets, technology, financial capacity and strategic geography into an integrated economic architecture, the consequences will extend far beyond Iran.
It could mark the beginning of a genuinely multipolar global economy.
The question is no longer whether the world can move beyond a dollar-dominated financial system.
The question is whether BRICS has the courage, discipline and institutional intelligence to build the alternative.
And history may judge this moment as the point at which BRICS finally decided to stop discussing a new economic order—and started building one.BRICS AT THE CROSSROADS: TURNING THE IRAN SANCTIONS CRISIS INTO A NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
By Ahmad M. Salihu
There are moments in international affairs when history does not knock twice.
The present confrontation between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran may be one of those moments—not simply because of the geopolitical consequences of the conflict, but because of what the accompanying economic sanctions reveal about the architecture of the global financial system.
On August 23–24, 2026, the United States expanded sanctions against Iran and warned countries and companies maintaining economic relationships with Tehran that they could face consequences, including potential exclusion from the dollar-based financial system.
This is precisely why the BRICS countries must begin treating financial independence not as a distant ambition, but as an urgent strategic necessity.
The issue is bigger than Iran.
It is about whether the global economy should remain overwhelmingly dependent on one country's currency, financial institutions and payment infrastructure—or whether the emerging economies of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America can construct a genuinely multipolar economic system.
THE QUESTION BRICS MUST ASK
The question before BRICS is no longer simply:
"Can we create a BRICS currency?"
The more important question is:
"Can BRICS create a financial ecosystem in which international trade can continue even when one member is targeted by unilateral sanctions?"
That distinction is crucial.
A common currency is difficult. It requires monetary coordination, fiscal discipline, enormous reserves, confidence among member states and institutions capable of managing the currency.
But BRICS does not necessarily need to wait for a fully fledged common currency before beginning the process.
It can start with something much more practical:
a BRICS settlement system.
India's central bank has already proposed linking BRICS countries' digital currencies to facilitate cross-border payments, potentially reducing reliance on the dollar and traditional correspondent-banking networks.
That is the direction BRICS should accelerate.
BRICS ALREADY HAS THE ECONOMIC WEIGHT
BRICS is not a small economic club searching for relevance.
The bloc's own official data put its share of global GDP at approximately 39% on a purchasing-power-parity basis in 2023 following its expansion.
The Central Bank of Brazil describes the expanded group as representing approximately 49% of the world's population, 36% of global territory, 39% of global GDP and 23% of international trade.
These numbers demonstrate something fundamental:
BRICS possesses the market, resources, labour force and productive capacity necessary to become a major pillar of the global economy.
China brings enormous manufacturing capacity.
India brings a huge consumer market, technology, pharmaceuticals and services.
Russia brings energy, minerals, agriculture and strategic commodities.
Brazil brings food, agricultural commodities, minerals and industrial capacity.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE bring enormous financial resources and energy influence.
Iran brings energy, strategic geography and access to the Persian Gulf and Central Asian trade corridors.
Egypt provides a critical gateway through the Suez Canal.
South Africa provides an important gateway into Africa.
Ethiopia brings agricultural potential, population and strategic African positioning.
Indonesia brings a huge population, natural resources and a pivotal Indo-Pacific location.
Together, this is not merely a political grouping.
It is an economic ecosystem.
THE IRAN CRISIS EXPOSES THE VULNERABILITY
The current Iran confrontation demonstrates the power of financial sanctions.
When international transactions depend heavily upon dollar clearing, Western correspondent banks and financial infrastructure, Washington can exert enormous influence over companies and countries far beyond American territory.
That creates a structural vulnerability.
A country may have oil.
It may have minerals.
It may have food.
It may have factories.
It may have customers.
But if the financial channels through which buyer and seller settle their transactions are controlled by institutions vulnerable to American sanctions, the trade can still be disrupted.
This is precisely the vulnerability BRICS should address.
The answer, however, should not be an attempt to destroy the dollar overnight.
That would be unrealistic.
The better strategy is to create credible alternatives.
BRICS DOES NOT NEED TO "DESTROY THE DOLLAR"
This is an important distinction.
The dollar remains deeply embedded in global trade, investment, central-bank reserves and financial markets.
BRICS should therefore avoid making the mistake of announcing that it will immediately replace the dollar.
Instead, it should pursue a much more intelligent objective:
Give countries a choice.
If a Nigerian company wants to purchase machinery from China, why must the transaction necessarily pass through dollars?
If India purchases oil from Russia, why must the transaction necessarily be denominated in dollars?
If China buys Brazilian agricultural commodities, why must the dollar always be the settlement currency?
If an African country imports energy from a BRICS member, why should its banking system be exposed unnecessarily to sanctions originating outside the transaction?
The objective should be:
Dollar optionality—not dollar destruction.
THE BRICS CURRENCY SHOULD BE THE FINAL STAGE, NOT THE FIRST STAGE
There is enormous excitement surrounding the idea of a BRICS currency.
But a common currency is extraordinarily complicated.
Europe spent decades building the institutions that eventually produced the euro.
BRICS consists of countries with very different economic structures, inflation rates, monetary policies, exchange-rate systems and geopolitical interests.
Therefore, BRICS should not rush into creating a physical or conventional common currency simply for political symbolism.
Instead, it could build a three-stage architecture.
STAGE ONE: LOCAL-CURRENCY TRADE
BRICS members should dramatically increase bilateral trade denominated in their own currencies.
China-Russia.
China-India.
India-Russia.
China-Brazil.
China-Saudi Arabia.
India-UAE.
Russia-Iran.
Brazil-China.
And eventually Africa-BRICS trade.
Currency-swap arrangements can provide liquidity and reduce the need for dollars in bilateral commerce.
STAGE TWO: A BRICS DIGITAL SETTLEMENT UNIT
The bloc could create a digital settlement instrument—not necessarily a consumer currency.
Think of it as a BRICS Trade Settlement Unit.
It could be backed by a diversified basket of participating currencies and potentially supported by commodities and reserve assets.
Importantly, it would initially function primarily between banks, governments and approved commercial institutions.
It would settle trade.
It would not necessarily replace national currencies.
STAGE THREE: A TRUE BRICS COMMON CURRENCY
Only after years of successful settlement integration should BRICS consider creating a genuine common currency.
By then, the market would already have developed confidence in the system.
The common currency would therefore emerge from economic integration rather than political declarations.
THE NEW DEVELOPMENT BANK MUST BECOME MORE IMPORTANT
The New Development Bank is one of BRICS' most important institutions.
It should become the financial engine of the emerging Global South.
Iran's central-bank governor said in August 2026 that Iran would soon join the New Development Bank, demonstrating the growing importance of BRICS financial institutions to countries seeking alternatives to Western financial channels.
The NDB should expand financing for:
- Railways
- Ports
- Electricity
- Renewable energy
- Oil and gas infrastructure
- Mining
- Agriculture
- Manufacturing
- Digital infrastructure
- Telecommunications
- Water projects
- Industrial parks
- Cross-border transport corridors
But there is an additional opportunity.
The NDB should increasingly lend in local currencies.
A country should not have to borrow dollars to build infrastructure that generates revenue in its own currency.
BRICS SHOULD BUILD A FINANCIAL FIREWALL
This may be the most important proposal.
BRICS should establish a collective financial mechanism capable of providing emergency liquidity to a member facing sanctions or financial disruption.
Imagine a member country suddenly loses access to major international payment channels.
Instead of collapsing economically, it could activate a BRICS financial-support mechanism.
The mechanism could provide:
Liquidity + trade credit + currency swaps + emergency financing + commodity settlement facilities.
This would transform sanctions from a potentially devastating weapon into a manageable economic inconvenience.
ENERGY IS BRICS' GREATEST STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE
Energy may be the most powerful instrument available to BRICS.
The expanded bloc includes some of the world's most important oil and gas producers and consumers.
This creates an extraordinary possibility.
BRICS could develop an energy-trade settlement platform in which participating countries can purchase oil and gas using several approved currencies.
The result would not necessarily eliminate the dollar.
It would simply introduce competition.
A world where oil can be purchased in dollars, yuan, rupees, dirhams, roubles or a BRICS settlement instrument is fundamentally different from a world where one currency dominates energy settlement.
The current Iran crisis has already accelerated attention toward non-dollar energy transactions and alternative financial rails.
BRICS should learn from this moment.
GOLD CAN PLAY A ROLE
Gold should also be considered.
Not necessarily as a return to a rigid gold standard, but as a neutral reserve asset.
Gold has one enormous advantage:
It does not belong to any single government.
A BRICS settlement framework could therefore incorporate gold reserves as part of its reserve architecture.
This could increase confidence in the system without requiring every participating country to trust the monetary policy of another member.
BRICS CAN TURN SANCTIONS INTO A MARKET OPPORTUNITY
This is where the present crisis becomes particularly interesting.
Sanctions create economic distortions.
When one market is restricted, another market can become more important.
If Western companies withdraw from a market, companies from BRICS countries can potentially fill some of the resulting gaps—provided they comply with applicable laws and manage sanctions risks responsibly.
This could create opportunities in:
- Energy
- Petrochemicals
- Agriculture
- Fertilizers
- Pharmaceuticals
- Machinery
- Construction
- Transportation
- Mining
- Telecommunications
- Digital services
- Food processing
- Industrial manufacturing
The principle should be simple:
BRICS should not exploit suffering; it should exploit economic opportunity created by fragmentation.
The goal should be lawful trade, investment and development—not sanctions evasion.
AFRICA MUST NOT BE LEFT OUT
This is where the BRICS opportunity becomes particularly important for Africa.
Africa possesses enormous natural resources but often exports raw materials and imports finished products.
That structure must change.
BRICS countries need African minerals.
Africa needs BRICS capital, technology, infrastructure and industrial markets.
That is a potential strategic bargain.
Instead of:
Africa → raw minerals → foreign market → finished goods → Africa
the model should become:
African resources → African processing → BRICS investment → African manufacturing → global markets.
Nigeria, for example, possesses substantial deposits of lithium, tin, tantalum, iron ore, gold, zircon, ilmenite, monazite and other minerals.
The future opportunity is not simply to dig these resources out of the ground.
It is to process them locally and integrate African mineral production into global industrial supply chains.
That is where BRICS can become transformative.
THE REAL BATTLE IS NOT CURRENCY
Ultimately, this is not merely a currency war.
It is a battle over economic infrastructure.
Who controls payment systems?
Who controls international banking channels?
Who controls commodity pricing?
Who controls shipping insurance?
Who controls financial messaging?
Who controls critical technologies?
Who controls strategic mineral supply chains?
Who controls global investment?
Who controls the platforms through which international commerce takes place?
If BRICS wants genuine economic sovereignty, it must address all of these.
BRICS SHOULD BUILD ITS OWN PAYMENT NETWORK
The bloc should accelerate the creation of interoperable payment systems.
The technology already exists.
China has advanced digital payment infrastructure.
India has developed one of the world's most important instant-payment ecosystems.
Brazil has Pix.
Russia has developed alternatives to Western financial infrastructure.
Several BRICS members are developing or operating central-bank digital currencies.
These systems should become interoperable.
A Chinese importer should be able to pay an Indian exporter directly.
An Indian company should be able to pay a Brazilian supplier.
An African company should be able to settle a legitimate transaction with a BRICS partner without unnecessary dependence on dollar clearing.
The technology is increasingly available.
The political will is the missing ingredient.
BUT BRICS MUST AVOID ITS OWN INTERNAL WEAKNESSES
There is another side to this argument.
BRICS cannot become a credible alternative merely by opposing the United States.
It must become stronger internally.
The bloc has enormous differences among its members.
China and India have strategic competition.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have their own geopolitical history.
Russia has conflicts with Western powers.
Brazil has different economic priorities.
African members have different development needs.
Therefore, BRICS must be built around economic cooperation rather than ideological uniformity.
Members do not have to agree on everything.
They simply need to agree that:
Trade should remain possible.
Development should remain possible.
Financial sovereignty should exist.
No single country should possess unlimited power over the economic lifelines of another sovereign nation.
BRICS' GREATEST WEAPON IS ITS MARKET
The most powerful thing BRICS possesses is not oil.
It is not gold.
It is not military power.
It is people.
Hundreds of millions of consumers.
Billions of consumers across the wider BRICS ecosystem.
Manufacturers.
Farmers.
Engineers.
Scientists.
Entrepreneurs.
Workers.
Students.
Technology companies.
Financial institutions.
Commodity producers.
If BRICS can integrate this enormous economic base, the bloc becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.
The world will trade with the market that offers the greatest opportunities.
THE UNITED STATES SHOULD NOT BE THE ENEMY
A mature BRICS strategy should not be built around hatred of America.
The United States remains one of the world's most powerful economies, technological centres and investment markets.
BRICS should compete—not isolate itself.
The objective should be a multipolar economic system in which America remains powerful, Europe remains powerful, China remains powerful, India rises further, Africa industrializes, Latin America expands its influence and the Middle East becomes a stronger financial and industrial centre.
Competition can actually strengthen the global economy.
The danger is not American economic power itself.
The danger is excessive concentration of economic power anywhere.
THIS IS BRICS' MOMENT
The Iran crisis has exposed something the BRICS countries have discussed for years:
financial dependence creates strategic vulnerability.
The answer cannot be endless declarations about de-dollarization.
It must be infrastructure.
Build the payment system.
Build the settlement mechanism.
Build the currency swaps.
Build the development bank.
Build the trade-credit system.
Build the digital financial bridges.
Build commodity exchanges.
Build shipping and insurance capacity.
Build industrial supply chains.
Build African infrastructure.
Build Latin American manufacturing partnerships.
Build Asian technology corridors.
And eventually, when the foundations are strong enough, build the common currency.
That is how a new economic order is created.
Not through speeches.
Through institutions.
CONCLUSION: THE WORLD IS MOVING TOWARD MULTIPOLARITY
The current confrontation over Iran may eventually end through diplomacy.
Sanctions may be lifted or modified.
Governments may change.
Wars may end.
But the lesson will remain.
Every country that depends excessively on another country's financial infrastructure carries a geopolitical vulnerability.
BRICS has an opportunity to convert that vulnerability into a historic project.
It should not seek to destroy the dollar.
It should seek to make the world less dependent on any single currency.
It should not seek to replace one hegemon with another.
It should build a system where multiple centres of economic power coexist.
It should not build an anti-American economy.
It should build a pro-competition global economy.
And it should not wait for another crisis.
The time is now.
The United States has demonstrated the power of financial sanctions. BRICS should demonstrate the power of economic cooperation.
If the BRICS countries can transform their enormous populations, resources, markets, technology, financial capacity and strategic geography into an integrated economic architecture, the consequences will extend far beyond Iran.
It could mark the beginning of a genuinely multipolar global economy.
The question is no longer whether the world can move beyond a dollar-dominated financial system.
The question is whether BRICS has the courage, discipline and institutional intelligence to build the alternative.
And history may judge this moment as the point at which BRICS finally decided to stop discussing a new economic order—and started building one.
Ahmad M. Salihu
ahmad.msalihu22@gmail.com
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