Lorenzo Maria Pacini
There is a fear running through the streets of the collective West-a terrifying idea, a monster of unspeakable horror haunting the dreams of its leaders: the BRICS.
Hiding Behind a Finger
There is a fear running through the streets of the collective West-a terrifying idea, a monster of unspeakable horror haunting the dreams of its leaders: the BRICS. And even worse, what they are doing: dismantling the hegemony of the American dollar.
In July 2025, President Donald Trump told his cabinet, "BRICS was set up to hurt us, they were designed to weaken our dollar and take it off as the global standard." His blunt statement reflects a growing concern in the United States: the notion that BRICS-once a loose coordination of emerging economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa-has transformed into a bloc determined to challenge Western-led institutions and undermine American financial supremacy. The core issue concerns the true capacity of the BRICS to act as an effective instrument, given that their formation was neither accidental nor unexpected.
Their consolidation reflects a long accumulation of sentiments dating back to the Cold War and postcolonial struggles. The Non-Aligned Movement, founded in Belgrade in 1961, offered an institutional dimension to the desire of newly independent states to avoid the obligation of siding with Washington or Moscow. Yet neutrality soon took on different meanings, as it came to signify real autonomy-as with Jawaharlal Nehru's India or Josip Tito's Yugoslavia. These countries pursued sovereignty and freedom of maneuver. A form of "neutrality against," instead, was less about independence and more about indirect opposition to the United States. By the 1970s, many governments claimed non-alignment while benefiting from Soviet support. These currents survived the debt crises of the 1980s, the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and the unipolar phase of the mid-1990s.
In the early 2000s, China revived this tradition, presenting itself as the spokesperson of the developing world, expanding its ties in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and advocating multipolarity as an alternative to Western financial hegemony. The persistence of the dollar's centrality and the unequal distribution of power in global institutions fueled this narrative, allowing the BRICS to become the institutional expression of these grievances.
Russia, shaped by the upheavals of the 1990s, saw in the BRICS a useful framework for its policy of resistance. Its role fits perfectly within the tradition of "neutrality against," in which supposed non-alignment becomes opposition to the United States-especially after the U.S. sanctions of 2014 and 2022.
The creation of the New Development Bank in 2014, the expansion of bilateral currency swap agreements, and the gradual promotion of yuan-denominated trade serve as tools aimed at reducing the dollar's weight, even while presenting the project as reformist rather than revolutionary.
Brazil has adopted a more flexible stance. Its diplomacy continues to practice a "neutrality for," seeking room for advantage in the international system without breaking ties with the United States or the European Union.
India, among the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, remains anchored to the value of strategic autonomy. Its rivalry with China, heightened by clashes in Ladakh in 2020, limits its willingness to accept structures that expand Beijing's influence, even as it continues to invest in the BRICS framework.
The BRICS financial agenda-promoting non-dollar trade, diversifying reserves, and building parallel institutions-turns the traditional sentiment of non-alignment into a concrete threat to American interests. Since the creation of the Bretton Woods system in 1944, the primacy of the dollar has formed the foundation of U.S. global power. The BRICS lack the cohesion needed to dethrone the dollar entirely, but they can provide political cover and an institutional framework for "neutrality against." In doing so, they undermine the legitimacy of the dollar and of the U.S.-dominated international order.
All this terrifies the West, whose financial dominance rests on the dollar as a "universal currency"-slowly but effectively dismantled by the BRICS and the Global South. America, for its part, hides behind a finger so small that the Hudson Institute has felt compelled to dedicate an entire paper to the problem, pondering what "effective" strategies might counter the BRICS and their deleterious intention to ruin Washington's monetary toy.
The BRICS Financial Agenda
According to the paper, Washington's global economic power relies above all on the centrality of the dollar and the dominance of the SWIFT system (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication)-the secure messaging network connecting banks worldwide. SWIFT allows the United States to monitor financial flows and facilitate sanctions, anti-money-laundering measures, and counter-terrorism financing operations. This transparency distinguishes the dollar-based system from older, informal networks.
The BRICS, by contrast, seek to build channels that are difficult to monitor from the outside, in a manner similar to-brace yourselves-the methods used by terrorist cells through hawala, the ancient value-transfer system born in South Asia in the 8th century. Hawala functioned through trust-based networks without centralized records or oversight, leaving few traces. Like hawala, the group promotes local-currency regulations and alternative payment systems. The difference is that, whereas hawala relies on informal networks, the BRICS aim for official coordination among major economies to build solid alternatives to dominant reserve currencies. And for the U.S., this is a brutal low blow-one taken very poorly.
American control over the dollar and SWIFT is the core of its financial strategy. In the past, those seeking to evade U.S. oversight turned to informal methods that remained marginal and could not compete with the dollar's liquidity and reliability. The BRICS New Development Bank, China's CIPS system, and the growth of currency swap agreements are coordinated attempts to create alternatives to dollar payments-shifting the challenge from the margins to the center of global finance. BRICS members still depend on dollar liquidity, but each summit strengthens the credibility of alternatives, while de-dollarization moves from aspiration to policy.
Washington's ability to revoke SWIFT access-as it did against Iran in 2012 and Russia in 2022-is one of its economic weapons, but it has proven almost entirely ineffective, demonstrating through currency collapses that alternatives to the dollar-based system exist and even function. States rejecting dollar hegemony are labeled "hostile" and deserving of punishment. Financial sovereignty is not tolerated in Washington's clubs.
The group has advanced several possible tools for replacing the dollar:
- National alternative currencies.
Some members-above all China-seek to expand the use of their currencies in trade. Beijing uses bilateral swap agreements and the CIPS system-its SWIFT alternative-to enlarge the yuan's area of use. After intensified Western sanctions against Russia, Moscow and Beijing have settled growing shares of bilateral trade in yuan and rubles, while India has experimented with rupee-denominated trades.
- Barter and clearing mechanisms.
Some BRICS members already use such tools. India and Russia have conducted exchanges in rupees and rubles, and Iran has long relied on barter agreements to cope with shortages of hard currency. These systems can support economies hit by sanctions or financial difficulties, though they are difficult to balance or scale-especially in multilateral contexts-while still weakening the dollar's grip on the market.
- Digital currencies.
The most innovative scenario concerns payment systems based on cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies-especially stablecoins-already operate as a sort of parallel banking system in fragile or heavily sanctioned states, such as Venezuela or Iran. Pegged to the dollar, stablecoins like USDT and USDC offer a store of value and enable fast, low-cost international transfers. Yet their relationship with American power is ambiguous: on the one hand, they compete with U.S. financial institutions; on the other, they reinforce the dollar's influence by expanding its digital presence. A coordinated BRICS initiative would instead aim to break entirely from the dollar. China has experimented with the digital yuan, while Russia has adopted pro-crypto policies. The BRICS Pay project-aimed at managing cross-border transactions in local currencies-is still in its infancy.
Protecting the Gulf to Preserve Monetary Power
The BRICS have identified the Gulf as a key battleground for challenging the monetary supremacy that has underpinned American influence since the 1970s. The U.S., as is well known, built a true imperial system through the petrodollar-making the dollar the currency for oil transactions. But something is inexorably changing.
China leads the partnership strategy by encouraging Gulf oil producers to denominate part of their sales in yuan. At the same time, Huawei's role in shaping regional technological standards could foster the creation of alternative payment circuits and data networks to bypass Western supervision. Beijing has also encouraged the sovereign wealth funds of Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and Doha to invest in yuan-denominated platforms, digital currencies, and blockchain-based trading systems.
Russia and Iran contribute as well: Moscow conducts energy, military, and financial transactions with Tehran using rubles and rials, reducing exposure to U.S. sanctions. Iran, for its part, keeps its economy afloat through barter, gold transfers, and crypto networks that circumvent traditional banking channels. These parallel systems demonstrate to potential BRICS partners that trade can continue outside the dollar's orbit-even under heavy U.S. pressure. The goal is, in every case, to reduce the Gulf's dependence on the dollar and limit the reach of American sanctions, presenting these moves as simple "rebalancing" against Western economic coercion.
The United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. security ally and a major financial hub, joined the group in 2023. The decision does not signal a break with Washington but reflects Abu Dhabi's assessment that the BRICS offer concrete advantages at low cost. A similar logic drives Saudi Arabia: not yet a formal member, Riyadh has attended summits, discussed selling oil in yuan, and launched investment initiatives with China. These openings by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi reinforce the bloc's legitimacy and show that joining the BRICS is compatible with maintaining traditional security ties with the United States. This makes it harder for Washington to portray the group as marginal or inherently anti-Western; by attracting Gulf allies into their orbit, China and Russia undermine the central narrative of the American financial order.
Empty Recommendations
American policymakers have begun to recognize the risk posed by parallel financial institutions. President Trump's signing of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act laid the groundwork for control mechanisms aimed at curbing the use of stablecoins to evade sanctions, but the reality is that such limitations apply only within U.S. jurisdiction-while most cryptocurrencies lie outside the American legal sphere.
Domestic regulation will not suffice for the U.S. to extend dominance over these new monetary forms. The pace of financial innovation is too fast, and the BRICS' incentives to pursue monetary sovereignty are too strong for them to abandon their search for digital and political alternatives. To preserve the dollar's status-and thus the United States' ability to exercise global financial oversight-Washington will need to adopt a combination of economic, regulatory, and diplomatic measures. Otherwise, it will soon be time to say: "Bye bye, Mr. Dollar!"
From the American perspective, any financial institution choosing to operate within a compensation system designed to bypass SWIFT should lose access to both SWIFT and dollar transactions. For banks, the choice would be obvious: losing access to the U.S. system-which handles the majority of global transactions-would be far more costly than gaining entry to a BRICS-promoted alternative network.
Washington has already made efforts to remind states interested in joining the BRICS of the costs of supporting a project aimed at weakening the United States, using threats, retaliation, and tariffs. For American leadership, current members should be discouraged from participating in Russian, Chinese, or Iranian efforts to erode the dollar's role. But the "most powerful currency in the world" is now a distant memory, and none of the partners wants to risk missing the opportunity of a future beyond American hegemony. For it is clear: everyone is growing tired of this arrogance.
The dollar, ladies and gentlemen, is now inexorably heading off the playing field. For the U.S., defending its centrality means preserving America's ability to monitor international transactions and impose measures at will under the guise of "humanitarian operations." If Washington does not act decisively to defend SWIFT, regulate stablecoins, exert diplomatic pressure, and reinforce the legitimacy of American financial supervision, the BRICS will continue to shape an alternative, antagonistic monetary order-presenting themselves as champions of non-alignment and multipolarity.
A happy end of the dollar, buddy!