The challenges to BRICS posed by higher US tariffs have reignited discussions on the expediency of the bloc’s greater institutionalization in order to muster a coordinated trade response
The challenges to BRICS posed by higher US tariffs have reignited discussions on the expediency of the bloc’s greater institutionalization in order to muster a coordinated trade response. Attempts to coordinate a common response are taking place after the 2025 BRICS summit, when the main policy focus of Brazil, a country that holds the BRICS presidency in 2025, has shifted towards the COP30 conference to be held in November 2025. We believe a more concerted effort towards institutionalization is likely to be undertaken in the next several years during the BRICS presidencies of India (2026) and then China (2027).
Throughout the past decade, while BRICS institutionalization has been actively discussed, it has not been pursued vigorously due to concerns over excessive rigidity and bureaucratization of the bloc’s operations. Indeed, in platforms such as the G7 and the G20 (that some observers use as benchmarks for BRICS at the global level) coordination is mostly conducted by the bloc’s rotating presidency. There may be reasons now why a departure from the patterns observed in the G20 and the G7 may be underway in the case of BRICS – the key trajectories of BRICS institutionalization in our view include the following:
– Developing the already existing institutional framework: expanding the operations of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and launching full-fledged operations of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA)
– Creating new institutional mechanisms that are to support the economic cooperation among BRICS economies such as the BRICS Multilateral Guarantees (BMG) initiative proposed by Brazil and approved by the BRICS summit in Rio in 2025
– Creating formal mechanisms of policy continuity within BRICS via launching a Troika mechanism that is represented by the coordination among the previous year’s, the current year’s, and future year’s presidencies
– Creating a BRICS Secretariat and BRICS Headquarters that operate continuously and represent BRICS in international forums
My earlier line of reasoning was that before resorting to institutionalization BRICS had to exhaust to the degree possible all the available options in building platforms and networks that did not require any apparatus, bureaucracy or rigid coordination. In particular, platforms formed by the regional development banks of BRICS+ economies or the platforms of the national Sovereign Wealth Funds of BRICS members could all be launched with the coordination of existing institutional mechanisms such as NDB. In reality, the BRICS progression towards forming such mechanisms turned out to be sluggish, with institutionalization now likely to be seen as a factor that could actually facilitate a speedy creation of these and other cooperative platforms.
Furthermore, global economic conditions have changed so dramatically that an accelerated move towards institutionalization appears to be one of the key options for BRICS in building their capability to muster a coordinated response to intensifying external shocks. Perhaps one of the key factors that changes the outlook on institutionalization within BRICS is the recent escalation in BRICS trade tensions with the US and the lack of a swift coordinated response in the bloc’s trade policy. For the latter to advance materially, BRICS may need to create a Secretariat/Commission that would expedite the creation of a common BRICS/BRICS+ platform within the WTO and that could work with the BRICS Presidency as well as possibly the BRICS Troika (once it is formed) in conducting trade negotiations with countries and regional blocs across the world economy.
The momentum within BRICS is already shifting in the direction of greater institutionalization. Back in 2024 the Final Declaration of the Kazan summit referred to the institutionalization process as one of the key development tracks for BRICS (para 5 of the Declaration) – a trend that was reinforced in the Final Declaration of the BRICS summit in Rio in 2025. The Rio Declaration also refers to the steps undertaken during Brazil’s Presidency to improve the operation of such institutional mechanisms as the BRICS CRA as well as to launch the BRICS Multilateral Guarantees (BMG) initiative (para 48). Furthermore, some of the tracks of BRICS cooperation are already featuring the use of the Troika mechanism – in particular, the Youth Policy track envisages the creation of a Troika mechanism as stated in the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Youth Affairs (July 2025).
Overall, given the developments so far in 2025, the trend towards greater institutionalization of the BRICS bloc is likely to pick up pace. We expect greater momentum in this direction to be observed next year during India’s chairmanship in BRICS, with limited scope for progress in the remainder of this year. The focus of BRICS institutionalization efforts is likely to prioritize such areas of economic cooperation as trade policy, where most of the challenges to BRICS as a bloc are emerging in recent periods and are likely to continue to loom large in the next several years.
Yaroslav Lissovolik is Founder of BRICS+ Analytics.
