‘Trade war’: challenge or chance for BRICS?

World
Europe

01:18

With the US president’s ongoing challenge against the global trade establishment, the world’s largest international bloc for developing and emerging economies is asking its five members if Trump’s “trade war” could be a chance otherwise.

“Instead of looking at the trade war as a big problem, let’s look at it as an opportunity to redress the trade,” said Paul Zilungisele Tembe, director of Sele Encounters in Johannesburg, South Africa where leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are gathering for the 10th BRICS summit from Wednesday to Friday.

The rising unilateralism and protectionism arrive as the Trump administration sees not only China but also its European allies as “trade foes,” threatening its trading partners with steep tariff imposition.

The “trade war” offers BRICS countries an opportunity to streamline themselves, he said at CGTN’s BRICS Talk, a special edition by The Point (@thepointwithlx) and South Africa’s SABC.

“It's not the United States should be in question now,” he said. “What should be in question is that how ready is the South-South cooperation and BRICS able to use the institutions that they have established [to address the challenge].”

Tembe noted that BRICS is built as a complementary alternative to the dependence on the West for growth, hailing it as a very coherent arm for South-South cooperation that is pooling the developing force of the world’s emerging economies.

Tembe believed that the BRICS, designed to cover different regions of the world, should converge together in face of Trump’s trade policy and tap the potential of BRICS’ institutions such as the New Development Bank.

“This is a time these BRICS institutions should test themselves,” Tembe said, adding solutions coming out of them will enable BRICS to mitigate the problems that might rise.