'Judging Freedom' edition of 31 October 2024: a review of the BRICS Summit
The lighting and perhaps the sound of the recording from my Petersburg apartment may have left something to be desired, but I believe the content may provide food for thought, particularly among those who yesterday saw many of the same questions addressed by the roving journalist Pepe Escobar in his exchange with Judge Andrew Napolitano.
This allowed us to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of physical presence at an event like the BRICS Summit which takes place largely behind closed doors and where the big news is released in set speeches or at the closing press conference, which are covered in full by television and so are accessible from remote.
The main point I was trying to make is that the Summit revealed some very unexpected decisions by the BRICS team on how to prioritize its future activities and expansion. They are not planning a frontal assault on the existing world financial structures. They are not building an alternative global system to rival SWIFT. The reason for this, as I see it is not just the technical difficulties but the practical consideration that they do not want to coerce existing and future members of the BRICS inner club and outer circle of Partners to jump with both feet into their camp and to deprive themselves of the proven advantages of SWIFT as if they were under sanctions like Russia and Iran.
Similarly, de-dollarization is going to proceed as an indirect, not direct consequence of BRICS activities. The main mover is the consolidation of oil and gas trading in BRICS Members and Partners. That Nigeria and Algeria have been invited to join as Partners is one more proof of this. The relevance is that the single largest commodity in global trade is hydrocarbons, which have traditionally been priced in dollars - hence the 'petrodollar' as a global force underpinning the strength of the dollar as a reserve currency. Among the BRICS members there is a strong shift to the Yuan and other of their own national currencies, all of which is progressively dethroning the dollar in this key sector.
The same tendency will result from the grain, precious metals and other commodity exchanges that BRICS now plans to set up. All of these goods have been priced in dollars or pounds sterling due to their being traded in the USA or UK. Now, presumably they will be priced in one of the BRICS national currencies.
Are any of these plans having an effect on Washington? I believe that today's news from the US Treasury on sanctions being imposed and sanctions being lifted suggest that Yellen and her team are listening.
We all heard in Western mainstream reporting today on the imposition of secondary sanctions today on companies and individuals in various countries who are accused of helping Russia to evade the bans on shipping various military application goods and components to Russia. What I have not seen in these reports is what Russian news said tonight: that the Treasury has just suspended sanctions on a dozen major Russian banks until April 2025 to facilitate trading in oil!
If this is correct, it may be the first indication that the BRICS threat to dollar dominance is finally understood by Washington as being real and present.
For the video, see Dr. Gilbert Doctorow : Will BRICS Change Russia?
©Gilbert Doctorow 2024