Diversifying Dependence: BRICS and the Limits of Economic Autonomy

Does membership give countries more economic choices or does it simply change who they depend on?

Much of the debate about BRICS focuses on its size: its growing membership, large population, share of global output, and expanding role in world trade. These figures matter, but they don’t show how economic power is distributed within the group. A more useful question is whether BRICS gives its members more economic choices. Can they gain access to new markets, suppliers, technologies, and payment channels without becoming too dependent on another small group of powerful partners?

This is the central challenge facing BRICS. The group can help its members reduce their reliance on Western markets and financial systems. However, shifting trade and finance towards new partners does not automatically make economic relations more balanced: dependence may decline in one direction while increasing in another.

A growing but uneven trade network

BRICS is more than a diplomatic forum. Its members have developed increasingly important economic ties. Fujii (2026), using trade data for more than 200 countries between 1994 and 2023, finds that BRICS membership has had a measurable positive effect on trade among its members, even though the group is not a free-trade area. UNCTAD (2026) also reports that merchandise exports among the ten BRICS economies increased more than thirteenfold between 2003 and 2024, reaching $1.17 trillion.

The growth of trade, however, has not been evenly distributed across the network. A 2025 trade matrix based on ITC Trade Map data shows that the total recorded trade among ten BRICS economies was about $1.18 trillion. Around $884 billion—close to three-quarters of the total—involved China. China exported roughly $523 billion to the other nine economies and imported around $361 billion from them. If trade involving China is excluded, recorded trade among the remaining nine falls to about $294 billion (International Trade Centre, n.d.; Ishak, 2026). Part of this concentration is easy to explain. China is much larger than most other BRICS economies and has a far deeper industrial base. Its central position in the group’s trade network is therefore not surprising. But size is not the whole story.

UNCTAD (2026) finds that China is not only the largest exporter and importer within the ten-member network it examines; it is also the member least dependent on trade with other BRICS economies. By contrast, more than 30 per cent of the exports of Brazil, Russia and Indonesia go to BRICS markets, while Iran, Ethiopia, Russia and India obtain more than 40 per cent of their imports from fellow members. This does not prove that China can force other BRICS members to follow its preferences. Trade figures alone cannot establish that. They do, however, reveal an important imbalance: some members rely on the BRICS market much more heavily than China does.

Source: Author’s findings based on the available sources.

​This matters because economic dependence becomes politically important when one side has fewer alternatives than the other. A country that can easily replace a market or supplier is in a stronger position than one that cannot (Farrell and Newman, 2019).

The bigger issue is what countries trade

The structure of trade matters as much as its volume. UNCTAD (2026) reports that seven of the ten economies in its study receive more than 60 per cent of their intra-BRICS export earnings from primary products. At the same time, many of these countries import a larger share of manufactured and technology-intensive goods. China and India are the main suppliers of manufactured products within the group. There is nothing inherently harmful about this pattern. Commodity exporters need large markets, while industrial economies need energy, minerals and agricultural products. Both sides can benefit. The problem arises if this division of labour becomes fixed. A country may sell more oil, minerals or agricultural products to BRICS partners and reduce its dependence on Western markets, while still relying on others for machinery, technology and advanced industrial inputs. In that case, the direction of trade has changed more than the country’s position in the wider production system.

This is especially important today. Economic competition is no longer only about tariffs or market access. Governments increasingly use export controls, industrial subsidies, technology restrictions, sanctions and supply-chain policies as economic tools. Under these conditions, countries with stronger industrial and technological capabilities have more room to respond when economic pressure increases.

The 2026 New Delhi Declaration reflects this concern. BRICS governments called for stronger productive capacity, greater participation by developing economies in higher-value-added manufacturing, technology transfer, more resilient value chains and greater domestic value addition in critical minerals (BRICS, 2026). The long-term value of BRICS trade will therefore depend not only on how much members trade with one another, but also on whether that trade helps more of them develop stronger industrial and technological capabilities.

Finance: more options, not a new single centre

A similar issue appears in finance. Public discussion often asks whether BRICS can replace the US dollar. This is probably the wrong way to understand what is actually happening. The group’s current agenda is more limited and practical. The 2026 New Delhi Declaration supports greater use of national currencies in trade and investment and closer links between cross-border payment and messaging systems. At the same time, it recognises that members have different priorities and that no single model will work for all of them. This suggests that BRICS is trying to expand the range of available financial channels rather than create a single alternative to the dollar.

Research on BRICS+ currencies also points to gradual change. Mpanda and Sebola (2026) find that the dollar remains highly important, although the Chinese renminbi and some Gulf currencies have become more influential in transmitting movements across foreign-exchange markets. These results should not be overstated. The study examines links between currency markets; it does not measure which currencies countries actually use to invoice trade, settle payments, or hold as reserves. Its broader implication is still useful. Reducing reliance on the dollar does not automatically create a balanced financial system. If countries move away from one dominant channel but become heavily dependent on another, their vulnerability may simply take a different form.

The real measure of BRICS

The future importance of BRICS should therefore not be judged mainly by the number of members it attracts or the size of their combined economies. A better measure is whether membership gives countries more realistic choices when economic conditions change. Can they sell their goods to several important markets rather than one or two? Can they obtain critical technologies and industrial inputs from more than one source? Can they use different payment channels if one becomes unavailable? And can resource-rich members move into activities that create more value at home?

These are more demanding tests than simply measuring trade growth. Perfect balance within BRICS is neither possible nor necessary. China will remain much larger than many other members, and differences in industrial and technological capacity will not disappear. The important question is whether those differences leave other countries with meaningful alternatives. BRICS has already helped expand economic links among countries of the Global South. Its next challenge is harder: to make those links broad enough that greater cooperation also gives members greater economic freedom. If it succeeds, BRICS could contribute to a more genuinely multipolar economic system. If it does not, it may change the geography of dependence without changing its basic structure.

References

BRICS (2026) ‘BRICS New Delhi Declaration: Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability’, 12 September. Prime Minister of India. Available at: https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/brics-new-delhi-declaration-building-for-resilience- innovation-cooperation-and-sustainability-september-12-2026/ (Accessed: 6 October 2026).
Farrell, H. and Newman, A.L. (2019) ‘Weaponized interdependence: How global economic networks shape state coercion’, International Security, 44(1), pp. 42–79. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00351.
Fujii, E. (2026) ‘Informal institutions and global trade: Real effects of the elusive’, World Development, 206, 107458. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2026.107458.
International Trade Centre (n.d.) Trade Map [database]. Available at: https://www.trademap.org/ (Accessed: 22 September 2026).
Ishak, I. (2026) ‘Trade between BRICS members’, Voronoi, 22 September. Available at: https://www.voronoiapp.com/trade/Trade-Between-BRICS-Members–9102 (Accessed: 6 October 2026).
Mpanda, M.M. and Sebola, I.K.N. (2026) ‘Dedollarisation in the BRICS+ currency bloc: A market-based analysis of return and volatility connectedness’, Eurasian Economic Review. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40822-026-00372-z.
UNCTAD (2026) Two decades of intra-BRICS trade: Trends, patterns and policies. UNCTAD/TCS/GDS/INF/2025/2. Geneva: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Available at: https://unctad.org/publication/two-decades-intra-brics-trade-trends-patterns-and-policies (Accessed: 6 October 2026).