BRICS and the South African Dilemma: A Need for Revamp
Pepe Escobar is quite right: BRICS will have to be completely revamped. As he notes:
“…even Grandmaster Sergey Lavrov will have to reach this inescapable conclusion. The original Primakov triangle, ‘RIC’, once again dies another day. Even if India is not expelled from BRICS – it could be suspended – ‘RIC’ will necessarily have to be translated as Russia-Iran-China, or even ‘RIIC’ (Russia-Iran-Indonesia-China).”
However, there is another significant problem within BRICS that I have spoken about before: South Africa. The country talks a good game, but in reality, it is mostly rhetoric. At least 25% of the country remains US-centric. While the exact dynamics are complex, the long and short of it is that the ruling elites are ideologically tethered to the United States, regardless of their public statements.
If the country could stabilize itself and move away from the ruling ANC’s platform of racial grievance, it could slide into BRICS and the SCO without issue. However, that 25% (estimated from the previous election and likely higher now) needs to see something to aspire to. Currently, all they see is that President Trump offered them a kind word (in his own blunt manner). Meanwhile, the AGOA agreement with the US effectively runs the country, with working opportunities tied to its continuation. South Africa’s business community gets nowhere, despite the occasional economic bone tossed by China.
Complicating matters is the relationship between Cyril Ramaphosa and Donald Trump. Reports suggest Ramaphosa misrepresented the situation to Trump during a summit, repeating nonsensical ideas while Trump held the leverage. To be clear: there is no “white genocide” in South Africa, but there is a spate of extremely violent murders targeting people living and working on farms. What the people want is for these murders to be classified as a priority crime.
The US is now pushing Pretoria hard. According to the South African publication TimesLIVE, Washington is demanding that South Africa pursue a policy of non-alignment to normalize relations, which includes leaving BRICS. https://afrinz.ru/en/2026/03/us-demands-south-africa-adopt-non-alignment-policy-and-leave-brics-media/
Speaking at the BizNews conference in Hermanus, US Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III stated that the United States had “presented South Africa with five demands” a year ago, which the government has not fulfilled. Among these demands were a revision of expropriation laws, condemnation of the slogan “Kill the Boer” (Kill the Farmer) (which is not color-related but racism related and hate speech), and the adoption of a policy of non-alignment. The other two demands reportedly involve South Africa leaving BRICS and withdrawing its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
“We put together five asks… We’ve been waiting for almost a year for a response,” Bozell said. “The US is running out of patience.”
It is accurate to say that South Africa operates with two media streams: one for external use and another for internal consumption. I have previously compared Russia in 1991, when the Soviet Union broke, to South Africa, where discussions on ending apartheid began long before the 1994 freedom election. Today, South Africa is in a complete mess, lying in rack and ruin, deeply indebted to the IMF with a level of state capture that is staggering. Did you know South Africa has the most embassies in the whole world? It is generally considered as a fine and rich retirement opportunity. By contrast, Russia is performing well on almost any metric one might use. At that time in history, Russia was in rack and ruin and South Africa was a breadbasket and a functioning country.
We must ask: What has South Africa done for BRICS? The answer is: nothing. We have to ask then what has BRICS done for South Africa? Equally nothing, but this has more to do with the staggering state capture of resources as in reality, everybody knows that any investment goes to the ANC party, and not to the country. Even Brazil is more active. The BRICS Policy Center/PUC-Rio invites you to the debate “War against Iran: and what does it have to do with BRICS?” https://bricspolicycenter.org/en/the-brics-policy-center-puc-rio-invites-you-to-the-debate-war-against-iran-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-brics/
It does seem as if India has fired itself. If you take a look at the India BRICS website, nothing has been updated since last I looked in Mid-January. They are not in a coma, they seem to be quite dead already.
Recently, Solidarity (one of the largest civil society organizations) handed a report to Ambassador Bozell clearly outlining the devastating impact of South Africa’s race-based policies. This followed remarks by Bozell highlighting the abolition of these policies as one of five conditions set by the US government. Solidarity’s report estimates that the cost of complying with Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) amounts to between R145 billion and R290 billion per year—between 2% and 4% of South Africa’s GDP. The policy is estimated to cost the country up to 192,000 jobs annually.
Critics argue that this race-based “redress policy” for historical white privilege is effectively exclusionary. B-BBEE legislation is seen by many as aimed at white erasure; the High Court confirmed the complexity of these racial classifications in 2008 when it ruled that even Chinese citizens count as “Black” under the empowerment legislation.
I concur fully with Pepe: if BRICS has a future, it must be fully revamped. Consideration must be given to debt owed to Western organizations as well as real trade in real commodities. Currently, South Africa cannot sell gold or platinum freely, as significant interests belong to US and British companies. Furthermore, there is a desire to continue current agricultural practices even though China has asked them to create products with longer shelf lives, such as dried fruit, rather than short-life-cycle fresh fruit.
Racist laws must go. Many South Africans would return if there were a viable business environment and a less violent society. Finally, South Africans themselves must learn what socialism is; their current idea resembles the harsh Russian Bolshevikism of the past, under which the +25% minority suffered greatly. There are attempts now to regularize the crimes of the ANC before the Freedom election, as an equal attempt to regularize the crimes during the apartheid years. There are also receipts that Iran basically paid for the South African case against Israel at the ICC, not as a direct payment per se, but as part payment to keep the ANC functioning. See, they have no money left and this was clear with the recent outbreak of an animal disease, where they could not pay for the necessary medications and equally, in order not to expose this, they would not allow the farmers to pay for themselves either.
South Africa became part of BRICS because BRICS at the time needed an African partner. It is high time that the West African Alliance of Sahel States take their full and deserved part in BRICS, if we can bring BRICS out of its coma. Should we agitate to vote for any new, and old, BRICS members? Or at least have a say in what needs to change for a member to be accepted. Should us, we, the community, have a say? I say yes!