Jeffrey Sachs: BRICS Capable To Withstand Western Sanctions

The expansion of the BRICS group to six new states on January 1, 2024 will have serious consequences for the Western sanctions policy. This was stated by the well-known American economist, sustainable development expert, and former director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs.
At the recent BRICS summit (August 22-24, 2023) in Johannesburg, the five founding countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – agreed to open the doors of this international organization to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. As Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva recalled, “after expanding to six new states, BRICS will represent 36% of world GDP and 47% of the population of the entire planet.”
According to Sachs, the BRICS group is quite capable of resisting Western sanctions. “Western sanctions are not very effective when they are opposed by a significant or major part of the world. The BRICS countries are resisting Western sanctions, and this is of great importance,” – Sachs said in an interview with Sputnik. “We remind,” emphasized Professor Sachs, “that these sanctions violate international law, since restrictions of this type can only be introduced by decision of the UN.”
But the expansion of BRICS will not only undermine the sanctions, but also pose a mortal danger to the hegemony of the dollar. According to Sachs, a group of 11 world powers that are “engaged in building a new multipolar world has the ability to overthrow the dollar.” The BRICS countries every year increase the use of national currencies in bilateral and multilateral trade within the group and are working on issuing their own currency. As South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “BRICS leaders have instructed their finance ministers and central bank governors to appropriately consider local currencies, payment instruments, and platforms, then report back to BRICS leaders at the next summit.” Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed holding the BRICS summit in 2024 in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan.
The actions of BRICS have already thrown the US establishment into a state of fibrillation. Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green said on August 30 that “the development of trade between the BRICS countries, while abandoning the use of the dollar, will have a devastating effect on the USA and bring the country to its knees.”