Skip to main content
Support
Article

Brazil Sees BRIC Limitations

Paulo Sotero

While Brazil's interest in BRICS appears to be waning, looking ahead, the BRICS will remain a useful mirror that reflects back to Brazilian comparisons with China and India economic factors that drive productivity and competitiveness in an increasingly integrated world economy, writes Paulo Sotero.

The alleged demise of the BRICS is viewed in Brazil with the same caution diplomats and foreign policy experts greeted the group’s emergence in the global scene a decade ago. At best, the BRICS were seen by Brazilian diplomats and scholars as a useful mechanism to project Brazil internationally in a rapidly changing global landscape. However, as the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa lost speed and altitude over the past two years, the difficulties of articulating their conflicting interests in some sort of common vision became more evident.

President Dilma Rousseff’s decision to forgo this year’s New Delhi summit of IBSA, a subset of the BRICS formed ten years ago by its three democracies, is a good indication of the loss of interest for this sort of arrangement. 

Read the full article on CNN.com.

About the Author

Paulo Sotero

Paulo Sotero

Distinguished Fellow, Brazil Institute
Read More

Brazil Institute

The Brazil Institute—the only country-specific policy institution focused on Brazil in Washington—works to foster understanding of Brazil’s complex reality and to support more consequential relations between Brazilian and US institutions in all sectors. The Brazil Institute plays this role by producing independent research and programs that bridge the gap between scholarship and policy, and by serving as a crossroads for leading policymakers, scholars and private sector representatives who are committed to addressing Brazil’s challenges and opportunities.  Read more