PM Modi in Brazil for BRICS Summit, Trump tariffs likely in group's focus | What's on agenda
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not attend the BRICS meeting this year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Brazil on Sunday (Saturday evening local time) for the BRICS Summit 2025 in Rio de Janeiro after wrapping his Ghana and Trinidad and Tobago visits.
This is the fourth leg of PM Modi’s five-nation tour, which began on July 2. Modi then landed in Argentina for the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in over five decades. Now he is in Brazil, from where he will head to Namibia to cap off his longest diplomatic tour yet.
The BRICS summit will be held without the presence of the two big bloc leaders. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not attend the meeting this year. However, the annual summit has a packed agenda.
PM Narendra Modi in Brazil: India’s BRICS agenda
PM Narendra Modi’s first priority is that the BRICS bloc of nations calls out terrorism in clear terms. The BRICS declaration in Rio de Janeiro is expected to condemn the Pahalgam terror attack, which took 26 lives, mostly of tourists, in the Jammu and Kashmir resort town of Pahalgam on April 22.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 in response to the attack, targeting terror infrastructure in PoJK and Pakistan.
Apart from that, the BRICS summit is expected to adopt a framework for climate finance, collaboration on artificial intelligence, and a new health initiative aimed at reducing disparities.
India is also pushing for trade settlement in national currencies, which would reduce the global South’s dependence on the US dollar.
BRICS on Trump tariffs
BRICS leaders’ meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday is also expected to decry US President Donald Trump's "indiscriminate" trade tariffs, saying they are illegal and risk hurting the global economy.
Emerging nations, which represent about half the world's population and 40 percent of global economic output, have united over "serious concerns" about US import tariffs, according to a draft summit statement reported by AFP.
The draft summit declaration does not mention the United States or its president by name, but leaders gathering for talks on Sunday and Monday could amend it.
"We voice serious concerns about the rise of unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures which distort trade and are inconsistent with WTO (World Trade Organization) rules," AFP quoted the draft text.
The draft text warned that such measures "threaten to further reduce global trade" and are "affecting the prospects for global economic development."
