BRICS summit gives IMF gang a run for its money – Asia Times
It’s going to be a active, anxious and challenge-laden International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington this month.
There, the financial glitterati will fight a bewildering range of hot-button issues ranging from China’s decline to Germany’s crisis to geopolitical risks everywhere to a toss-up US election that’s screening nerves everyday. Put in the IMF’s instructions about a US$ 100 trillion people loan timebomb.
Amazingly, Washington may become hosting this week’s following most powerful economic gathering. Moscow, home of the BRICS countries ‘ yearly mountain, will host the more enthralling event.
Some experts predicted that the gathering that gathered Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa would end up being a show just a few decades ago. In 2001, then-Goldman Sachs scholar Jim O’Neill coined the BRIC acronym. In 2010, the four original users added South Africa.
In the decades since, the BRICS seemed to reduce forward thrust. In a 2019 review, Standard &, Poor’s said the union had lost importance.  , Around that same day, O’Neill himself took some photos at his design.
O’Neill recently wrote that” the divergent long-term financial direction of the five states weakens the scientific value of viewing the BRICS as a clear economic grouping.” Based on the obvious debacle of the Portuguese and Soviet economies in the current century since 2011, where both have plainly performed significantly under-perform compared to what the 2050 scenario route laid out, I have often joked that I should have called the acronym “IC” .
However, the BRICS have since recovered some of their momentum and are now adding five more people. This year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates may join the slide.
Mariel Ferragamo, an scientist at the Council on Foreign Relations, information that” the addition of Egypt and Ethiopia will intensify voices from the African continent. Egypt even had close business ties with China and India, and social ties , with Russia”.
As a fresh BRICS part,  , Egypt” seeks to , get more investment , and increase its damaged economy”, Ferragamo information. ” China has long courted Ethiopia, the third-biggest business in sub-Saharan Africa, with , billions of dollars of investment , to make the region a hub of its Belt and Road Initiative. The addition of Saudi Arabia and the UAE would send in the , two biggest economies , in the Muslim world and the next and eighth major oil producers internationally”.
The schedule of this growth dovetails with a major BRICS plan: de-dollarization.
The BRICS announced plans to create a “multilateral online lawsuit and pay system” called BRICS Bridge in February, which “would help bridge the gap between the financial markets of BRICS member countries and promote joint trade.”
According to reports, the gathering this week will use a new strategy to make efforts to replace the US dollar more quickly. Udith Sikand, an analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, notes that one idea is for a gold-backed BRICS monetary unit.
According to Sikand, it seems unlikely that any single currency could get past this compulsion to completely replace the US dollar’s central role.
However, it is possible that a wide range of currencies could collectively chip away at their outsized role in an increasingly multipolar world. The logical consequence of a change would be that while the dollar is still important to global trade and capital flows, its ability to serve as a safe haven in stressful times would be diminished as investors weigh up their options among a myriad of alternatives.
And for that, the West needs to understand how much it makes things easier for the BRICS. After all, the Bretton Woods gang’s messing up their individual economies and, consequently, the global system contributes to this opening for the Global South countries.
Take the US, which is rife with political chaos at a time when the nation’s debt is over$ 35 trillion. The risks posed by the upcoming , November 5 election alone have credit rating companies on edge, particularly Moody’s Investors Service, which is the last to assign Washington a AAA grade.
Germany is flatlining, highlighting headwinds bearing down on the broader continent. As Germany’s Economy Ministry puts it, “economic weakness likely continued in the second half of 2024, before growth momentum gradually increases again next year”, adding that “technical recession” risks abound.
The European Central Bank’s decision last week to slash rates for the third time this year can be seen as a sign of the level of concern.
This increase in the rate of rate cuts is justified, according to Michael Krautzberger, global chief investment officer at Allianz Global Investors, because the combination of sub-trend euro growth and target inflation supports a much less restrictive monetary policy than is currently the case.
Krautzberger adds that” there are some hopes that recent Chinese policy support will help trade-sensitive markets like Germany, but we doubt that will be sufficient to offset the region’s weak domestic demand picture.” There is also a chance that trade disputes will return to the policy agenda after the upcoming US elections in November, adding to the risk of negative growth.
Making matters worse, according to the US and China’s public debt levels are projected to reach$ 100 trillion this year, in large part due to the country’s borrowing patterns.
” Our forecasts point to an unforgiving combination of low growth and high debt – a difficult future”, says IMF managing director , Kristalina Georgieva. Governments must work to reduce debt and rebuild buffers in anticipation of the upcoming shock, which may occur sooner than anticipated.
The world financial system is in immediate danger of such unthinkable debt levels. In a recent report, IMF analysts wrote that “higher debt levels and uncertainty surrounding fiscal policy in systemically important countries, such as China and the United States, can lead to significant spillovers in the form of higher borrowing costs and debt-related risks in other economies.”
These spillovers could make monetary policy decisions in both Asia and the world more difficult.
Officials from the Bank of Japan are declaring their intention to keep raising rates in Tokyo. Yet that’s despite data showing renewed weakness in retail sales, exports, industrial production and private machinery orders. and concerns among Ministry of Finance officials that deflationary forces might return in the months to come.
Even though inflation is easing in Japan,” the central bank has made clear that it will raise interest rates”, says Danny Kim, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. ” At best, this will slow growth. At worst, it could trigger a wider economic decline”.
All of this raises the question of whether the world’s leading economies are complacent about potential dangers.  ,
As officials arrive in Washington, there’s considerable relief that the US has n’t experienced the recession that the vast majority of economists predicted. Or that China’s downshift had n’t pushed mainland growth too far below this year’s 5 % target.
However, one might assume that this is the last blip before the storm. The geopolitical path is as dangerous as they can get. Middle East tensions are rising as Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on, aside from the ominous debt milestone that the IMF has flagged. And then there’s the return of the” Trump trade”.
Polls indicate that Kamala Harris and former US President Trump are in a very close race. The betting markets, though, suggest Trump might prevail. If so, Asia could quickly find itself in harm’s way.
Trump’s threat to slap 60 % tariffs on all Chinese goods is just the beginning. Many people predict that a Trump 2.0 administration will impose much higher taxes and trade restrictions, wreaking havoc on Asia in 2025.
Even if Trump loses to Harris, he’s hardly going to accept defeat and move on peacefully. Many people are already concerned that their candidates ‘ supporters may stage a second invasion of the US capital to protest their election defeat. That’s likely to imperil Washington’s credit rating anew and spook investors pushing Wall Street stocks to all-time highs.
The fallout from the Trump-inspired January 6, 2021 insurrection was among the reasons Fitch Ratings revoked its AAA rating on US debt, joining Standard &, Poor’s. The question now is whether Moody’s downgrades the US, too.
This uncertainty is influencing the BRICS’ positions. Southwest Asia is also clearly orienting itself toward the BRICS countries.  , All this is a global game-changer that few in the West saw coming.
Earlier this year, Malaysia detailed its ambitions to join the intergovernmental organization. Thailand and Vietnam are also interested in joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is a group of nations. In Indonesia, an increasing number of lawmakers are BRICS curious, too.
The involvement of Southeast Asia could have a significant impact on Joe Biden, the president of the United States. Since the Biden era, a regional bulwark has been built to counteract China’s growing influence and attempts to replace the US dollar in trade and finance.
The BRICS phenomenon demonstrates a growing stutter in relations between the US and many ASEAN members. This, at a time when , Saudi Arabia , is looking to phase out the “petrodollar”. As China, Russia, and Iran square off against old alliances, Riyadh is making more efforts to de-dollarize.
” A gradual democratization of the global financial landscape may be underway, giving way to a world in which more local currencies can be used for international transactions”, says analyst , Hung Tran at the Atlantic Council’s Geoeconomics Center.
” In , such a world, the dollar would remain prominent but without its outsized clout, complemented by currencies such as the Chinese renminbi, the euro, and the Japanese yen in a way that’s commensurate with the international footprint of their economies”, Tran says.
Tran points out that “in this context, Saudi Arabia’s approach to the petrodollar continues to be a significant harbinger of the financial future as its creation was fifty years ago.”
This week in Moscow, that potential future is on full display. Officials in Washington choose to ignore those plots located 800 kilometers away at their own risk.
Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
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