Over the past two decades, discussions surrounding BRICS+ have been dominated by two competing narratives: one that heralds the alliance as a China-led disruptor of the Western order, and another that frames it as the definitive voice of the Global South. Now, the alliance confronts a major test as Brazil debates a potential exit.
Critics frequently frame BRICS+ through a binary “West vs. Rest” lens, portraying it as a revolutionary vehicle to redefine global governance. Yet the world stage is undergoing a far more complex structural shift. Emerging and developed economies alike are navigating the systemic shockwaves of escalating geopolitical volatility, protectionist tariff escalations, and the rapid deployment of artificial intelligence. The latter represents the most transformative disruption in human civilization.
Can BRICS+ fill this leadership vacuum? It can, but only if its founding members transcend their internal rifts and operate as a functional, cohesive coalition. The bloc urgently required a shared platform on energy transition, supply chain resilience, and financial settlement mechanisms. For BRICS+ to mature, its members must manage their competing financial interests: while Russia and Iran push for an aggressively anti-Western de-dollarized bloc, members like India and the UAE actively protect their strategic and trade relations with the United States. However, is this pragmatic balancing act clearer than in Brazil? IMF projections indicate that Brazil is on track to reclaim its position as the world’s 8th largest economy by 2027. Still, its foreign policy trajectory remains a battleground of competing visions.
Brazil’s Foreign Alignment Trajectory
Stay ahead of the geopolitical week.
MD Briefing delivers expert analysis across five global fronts — the Indo-Pacific, energy, geoeconomics, European security, and the Middle East — every Monday morning. Free.
The administration of Jair Messias Bolsonaro (2019-2023) represented a sharp break from Brasilia’s institutionalized tradition of diplomatic autonomy. Driven by a certain alignment with Washington, the Bolsonaro government oversaw a surge in bilateral trade, surpassing $88 billion in 2022, while intentionally reducing geopolitical participation within the BRICS.
Defeated presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro advocated for an even more explicit alignment. This proposed continuity seeks to anchor Brazil within a U.S.-led hemispheric security and economic architecture, a 21st-century iteration of the Monroe Doctrine operationalized through frameworks like the Shield of Americas (or the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition). This vision promises deep bilateral integration, opening Brazil’s strategic oil reserves, critical minerals, and rare earth elements to the American capital. For reference, across the Latin American region, governments are entering into sweeping asymmetrical resources that lock in foreign concessions. In Argentina, the Incentives Regime for Large Investments (RIGI) framework guarantees a 30-year tax stability and export privileges to secure long-term U.S. access to the Lithium Triangle. Venezuela locked into a 25-year oil framework granting Washington the rights to purchase 20% of extracted crude oil at production cost. Meanwhile, Paraguay offers ultra-low operational tariffs—down to 10-12 per kilowatt-months—providing American technology firms with direct access to 100% renewable hydroelectric energy. Under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidency, Brazil is likely not to join the coalition.
Rooted in a far-right worldview that subordinates sovereignty to globalism, the ideological impulse toward total Washington alignment is far from new in Brazilian history. In the immediate post-WWII period, President Eurico Gaspar Dutra (1946-1951) similarly aligned Brasilia with Washington under the Cold War and anti-communist pretext. That rigid stance was ultimately abandoned in favor of a pragmatic, multi-vector foreign policy.
Formalized under San Tiago Danta’s Política Externa Independente (Independent Foreign Policy) in the early 1960s, Brazilian diplomacy spent decades prioritizing multilateralism and non-alignment over unilateral submission to any single power center.
Conversely, the Lula era’s ‘Active and Lofty’ foreign policy approach focused on expanding multilateral trade, opening more than 100 new agricultural and commercial markets worldwide as a strategic buffer against the global trade war. Today, Brazil’s traditional diplomatic consensus confronts a renewed challenge amid Donald Trump’s push to reassert total influence in Latin America. Lula 4.0 will, however, try to enhance its relations with the U.S. while seeking stronger Global South leadership.
How a Possible Brazilian Exit Would Impact the Bloc
A potential Brazilian exit from BRICS, a prospect explicitly raised by Eduardo Bolsonaro (Flávio’s brother and former Brazilian lawmaker currently living in the United States) in October 2026, when he stated that “Brazil’s existence in the BRICS is on the table [because] the intention of the BRICS is to form a bloc against the United States,” would represent a radical pivot away from Brasília’s independent diplomatic tradition. However, its actual systemic impact on BRICS itself would be limited. While Brazil’s departure would leave the group with a Latin American representative, the expanded BRICS+ framework now encompasses nearly twenty member and partner states. Without Brazil, the BRICS+ would still represent around 43.5% of the global population and a massive 42% of global PPP GDP.
Furthermore, responding directly to Washington’s pressure against alternative payment systems, such as U.S. objections to Brazil’s state-backed instant payment platform, PIX, the Flávio Bolsonaro administration would actively restrict its internationalization and subordinate Brazil’s financial autonomy to satisfy U.S. demands against de-dollarization efforts.
A BRICS without the ‘B’ would remain an undeniable global force. The original BRICS was never meant to be an exclusive ideological platform; its true value lies in offering emerging economies a pragmatic mechanism tailored to their development needs. Regardless of whether individual member states opt to participate or step aside, the shift toward an expanded multipolar alliance remains inevitable, with or without Brazil.
Lula 4.0 and a Revamped Global South Agenda
– Rare Earth Elements
As already highlighted during the presidential campaign, Lula’s new administration will focus on developing a robust critical minerals industry, founded on domestic processing and refining. Brazil has the second largest rare earth server globally, with around 21 million metric tons, the equivalent of 20-23% of the world’s known rare earth element reserves (REE). Today, China has the largest reserve, but unlike Brazil, it possesses sufficient technology and know-how for its commercialization. On the contrary, the country accounts for less than 1% of the global REE output due to lack of infrastructure. Domestically, efforts to further develop the industry came through Law 15,506/2026 (the National Policy on Critical and Strategic Minerals), which established the National Council for the Industrialization of Critical and Strategic Minerals, and the specialized Mineral Activity Guarantee Fund (FGMA). These initiatives can be crucial for Brazil to leverage the BRICS+ platform and create targeted economic processing zones to attract foreign investments and technological cooperation. At the same time, the government maintains strict control to mandate value addition and protect national sovereignty.
– Artificial Intelligence
In the past two years, the BRICS+ has actively advanced a unified AI agenda. Their shared framework for AI governance includes inclusive and responsible deployment, grounded in the digital sovereignty of global nations. During Session II of the 18th BRICS Summit, Chinese leader Xi Jinping proposed five initiatives to drive this vision: open-source and inclusive AI; trade and investment facilitation; digital industry cooperation; intelligent manufacturing cooperation; and science and technology talent development. With a global AI market projected to reach $4.8 trillion by 2033, these initiatives can position the BRICS+, and in particular, its least developed members, not merely as adopters of emerging technologies, but as players in a multipolar digital economy. The creation of a BRICS+-led Joint Mineral and Value-Addition Platform alongside an Open-Source AI and Compute Infrastructure Network would structurally transform its members’ economic autonomy, turning raw resources, wealth, and digital data into self-sustained industrial power.
The concept of “West vs. Rest” no longer reflects a simple binary but rather a shifting landscape where non-Western nations actively construct alternative networks for trade, technology, and investment. A more prominent leadership role for Brazil within the BRICS+ would help diversify the bloc’s geopolitical identity, counterbalancing perceptions of overly dominant Chinese influence. Ultimately, Lula 4.0 should adopt a more pragmatic stance on its foreign affairs strategy and strengthen its relations with the U.S. through trade and security while ensuring that the emerging global order reflects a truly diverse and self-determined Global South.
