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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

What are the BRICS up to lately?

It's been somewhat quiet on the BRICS front since their summit meeting in July. But on Thursday of this past week they met in New York as described in this BRICSPost article.  Some quotes from the article below and then a brief comment.


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"The Foreign ministers of BRICS countries fueling global economic growth have discussed strengthening ties within the bloc and rallying emerging economies to play a greater role in world affairs, economic and political. The five Foreign Ministers have met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Thursday."


"The BRICS Bank is hailed by experts as the first step towards reshaping the Western-dominated international financial system."
"The meet also “reaffirmed BRICS members’ commitment to safeguarding a just and fair international order”.
"Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, in her opening address at the UNGA, earlier this week, criticized the UN Security Council for its failure to implement reforms."
"Russia will host the 7th BRICS Summit in 2015 in the city of Ufa."
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My added comment: There is not anything new from the BRICS in this article. What we see is continued urging for reforms at the UN (and also the IMF though not mentioned in this article). So far no reforms are taking place at either one. 
It will be interesting to see how the US mid term elections turn out and then how the BRICS react to that. With just a little over a month to go, most polls show the Republicans will easily retain control of the House and may gain control of the US Senate (or a 50-50 split is possible too). Regardless of exactly how the Senate ends up, the election will likely favor the Republicans. The Tea Party faction of that party is in no way favorable towards the IMF or the UN. They would strongly resist the reforms that the BRICS are calling for. So the odds right now are that reforms are not likely to happen any time soon.
If that is the case, how do the BRICS react to that? Do they just reset their deadlines yet again off into the future for reforms to happen? Do they get frustrated and move forward on their own more forcefully? Just another drama to play out in the next few months that impacts what we are following here.

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