BRICS vs. US Hegemony: A Systemic Challenge to the Dollar's Supremacy

At the heart of the emerging multipolarity, the BRICS 2025 summit held in Rio de Janeiro on July 6 and 7, 2025 It marked a further step in the redefinition of the world order. What was once considered a symbolic and vague gathering of emerging economies is now solidifying itself as a geopolitical platform capable of openly challenging US hegemony, especially in monetary terms. In the West, the summit was largely ignored or ridiculed, but on closer inspection, it is one of the most significant developments in recent years in the slow decline of US unipolarity.

Trump's offensive against BRICS: between arrogance and panic

The White House's response to the summit was immediate and indicative of the nervousness of the American elite. The Trump administration threatened 10% tariffs against all BRICS members, and up to 50% against Brazil, guilty of hosting and chairing a summit explicitly focused on de-dollarization. Publicly, Trump downplayed the group's importance, calling it "irrelevant" or even "dead." But the actual substance of his threats reveals the opposite: BRICS represents a concrete challenge, not military but systemic, to the core of US power.

The real sore point is the possibility that a growing number of countries will abandon the dollar to settle their trade, loans, and reserves. In this sense, Trump's statement that the loss of the dollar as the global reserve currency would be "equivalent to a defeat in a world war" should be taken literally: war today is not fought only with missiles and sanctions, but with alternative currencies, trade flows, and financial infrastructures.

An expanding bloc, beyond propaganda

Contrary to the dominant narrative in Western media, the Rio summit did not reveal any internal crisis. Despite the physical absence of some key leaders—Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Iranian President Raisi—the meeting was attended by high-ranking representatives and consolidated an irreversible enlargement process. BRICS now has 10 full members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia) and 10 official partners, including Colombia, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

The fact that China and Russia delegated their representatives rather than directly attending was interpreted by many observers as a diplomatic gesture to emphasize that BRICS is not a China-centric bloc, but a pluralist platform in which each member can play an autonomous role. The symbolism is clear: unlike NATO or the G7, BRICS is not based on fixed hierarchies or hidden hegemony, but on a shared consensus.

The heart of the battle: de-dollarization and sovereignty

The main topic discussed at the summit was de-dollarization . Initiatives in this direction are numerous and already at an advanced stage:

• New Development Bank (NDB) , led by Dilma Rousseff, provides loans in local currencies and has recently admitted new members such as Colombia and Uzbekistan.

• Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) , an alternative to the IMF, provides liquidity to members in difficulty without imposing austerity policies.

• BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism and the cross-border payments system, which aim to connect central banks without going through SWIFT.

• New Investment Platform (NIP) , which offers BRICS countries opportunities to invest in non-dollar denominated assets.

The goal is not to create a new global currency in the short term, but to build a multilateral network of trade, lending, and investment that progressively reduces dependence on the Washington-dominated financial system.

The argument is clear: dollar hegemony is a cornerstone of Western neo-imperialism. Through it, the US exercises disproportionate power over the rest of the world: it can impose unilateral sanctions, exclude entire countries from international trade, and manipulate financial flows. More than a third of the world's countries are currently subject to US sanctions—a repercussion that has prompted many economies to seek concrete alternatives.

The crisis of Western military strength and propaganda

Besides the dollar, the American empire has so far been supported by two other pillars: military power and propaganda. But both are showing obvious cracks.

Militarily, the United States has failed to win any significant conflict since World War II. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from Libya to Ukraine, American campaigns have ended in strategic failures or catastrophic destabilization. Today, the very idea of a war against China or Russia seems unrealistic, as demonstrated by the repeated failures of the Pentagon's internal wargames.

On the information front, the Western propaganda machine—once a powerful instrument of "soft power"—is in decline. The mainstream media is increasingly perceived as tools for manipulation and justification of the Atlanticist agenda. The West's moral legitimacy is in crisis, and the multilateral institutions it controls—the UN, IMF, World Bank, ICC—are increasingly exposed as instruments of domination, not justice.

The Return of Postcolonial Logic: BRICS as the Heir of the Non-Aligned Movement

During the summit, Lula da Silva explicitly evoked the 1955 Bandung Conference , emphasizing how BRICS today represents the natural heir of the Non-Aligned Movement. It is no longer a simple economic alliance, but a political and historic project of emancipation from Western domination.

In this sense, BRICS is much more than an economic cartel: it is a systemic resistance movement , capable of uniting diverse countries under the banner of sovereignty, multilateralism, and international justice . The participation of Colombia, until recently one of Washington's most loyal vassals in Latin America, represents a symbolic turning point of historic significance.

Why the US Really Fears the BRICS

It's not China that scares Washington. It's not Russia. It's the possibility that other countries will stop obeying . It's the growing voice of the Global South demanding the right to no longer be a land of plunder or a battlefield between powers.

The true potential of BRICS lies not only in its aggregate economic capacity, but in its ability to offer a concrete alternative to the Western order: an order where the rules are not written by a few to maintain power over the many, but negotiated, respectful of differences, and oriented toward cooperation.

The twilight of unipolarity has already begun, although the path to a multipolar order will be anything but linear. It is reasonable to expect the Western bloc to react with all the means at its disposal: political destabilization, corrupt infiltration, proxy wars. However, despite its contradictions and limitations, the BRICS represents today the clearest sign of the decline of American hegemony and the concrete announcement of a new phase in global geopolitical history.