Sh*tting BRICS...Plus

Oh come on, you’re telling me you don’t like wordplay?

The nations that comprise the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—met last week, and ultimately decided to expand their roster to include six more countries from the global South.

Does this matter? The commentariat really doesn’t seem to know what they’re talking about, or how to make sense of BRICS.

Here are some of the stupidest (but real!) headlines about the BRICS+ Summit:

• “BRICS Expansion is a Big Win for China” (CNN)

• “American Power Just Took a Big Hit” (NYT)

• “BRICS Expansion is All About China” (The Hill)

• “BRICS Expansion Could Dethrone Europe” (Watcher Guru)

It’s important to grasp that BRICS+ is, at its most promising, just an anti-hegemonic bloc. It’s both a sign of multipolarity and a collective wish-cast for multipolarity. And it’s not—I repeat, not—a threat to the US.

Let me quickly explain.