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The BRIC forum was formally established in Russia in 2009. It was in part intended to design a response to the 2008 crash that would allow its four member states to insulate from the shockwaves wrought by the financial crisis. Beyond that, members had a common goal of reforming global governance, redistributing voting rights in the IMF and World Bank, improving South–South trade, and expanding local currency settlement.

But nevertheless, each country is pursuing strategies for dedollarization and green energy and manufacturing. BRICS is inherently about grasping and shaping a post-American world order, there are now many more nations interested in that project. Larry Summers said it best in 2023: “There’s a growing acceptance of fragmentation, and—maybe even more troubling—I think there’s a growing sense that ours may not be the best fragment to be associated with.”