A BRICS Threat to the Dollar?

By Jim O’Neill

The fact that a US-excluding group of emerging powers has higher aspirations for itself does not necessarily mean anything for the US-centered financial system. After all, the BRICS and potential BRICS-Plus countries face many significant challenges of their own, and it is not clear what they hope to achieve together beyond issuing symbolic statements. Crucially, the group’s most important economies are China and India, bitter adversaries that rarely cooperate on anything. Until that changes, it is fanciful to think that the BRICS or even an expanded grouping could mount any serious challenge to the dollar.