China Accounts for 70% of BRICS Trade While Brazil Emerges as the Essential Supplier of Food and Minerals: Inside the Bloc’s $1 Trillion Revolution
It was the year global trade maps were redrawn. In 2025, BRICS internal trade surged past the monumental milestone of one trillion dollars, sending a clear signal that the world’s emerging economic giants are no longer content to orbit around the traditional US-Europe axis. This isn’t just a statistic; it’s the consolidation of an alternative economic architecture that operates on its own terms, with its own engine, and increasingly, its own currencies.
At the heart of this transformation lies a striking asymmetry. China alone accounts for approximately 70% of this trillion-dollar flow, making the world’s manufacturing titan the gravitational center of the bloc. Yet while China supplies the machinery and technology, Brazil has quietly crystallized its role as the indispensable pantry and mineral vault of the Global South. From iron ore to soybeans, Brazil ensures the bloc doesn’t just build and innovate it eats and grows. And with 67% of transactions already conducted in national currencies rather than dollars, BRICS is systematically constructing a financial parallel universe that promises to reshape global power for generations.
This is the story of how a coalition representing nearly half the world’s population and almost 40% of global GDP is winning the silent war for economic multipolarity and why investors and policymakers can no longer afford to ignore the rise of the BRICS economy.
The Trillion-Dollar Tipping Point: BRICS Trade Hits a Historic Peak
To understand the magnitude of the one-trillion-dollar achievement, you must first appreciate the journey. Back in 2003, BRICS nations were separate emerging market narratives, not a coherent bloc. Yet over two decades, merchandise trade among them expanded more than 13-fold. The annual growth rate averaged 4.75% over the past five years, a tempo that outshines the sluggish expansions of advanced economies and persists despite geopolitical fragmentation, sanctions, and the stubborn dominance of the dollar.
The expansion of BRICS in 2024 and 2025 adding Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Indonesia to the original five immediately supercharged trade volumes. Energy-rich Gulf states began leveraging their petroleum muscle to strengthen internal cohesion, while Indonesia brought a massive domestic market and manufacturing potential. The result is a demographic and economic powerhouse: ten members, 45% of the world’s population, and a share of global GDP measured by purchasing power parity that has already surpassed the G7.
But beneath the headline number, the real story is not just growth it’s the structural shift. This trade is increasingly anchored in complementarity rather than dependency. China buys raw materials and sells manufactured goods; Brazil and Russia supply the raw materials; India offers services and pharmaceuticals; the Gulf supplies energy. The bloc is slowly, deliberately, forging a closed-loop economic ecosystem.
China: The Undisputed Engine Powering 70% of Intra-BRICS Commerce
If BRICS were a solar system, China would be its sun. With approximately $3.59 trillion in exports, representing 64% of the bloc’s overall exports, China’s dominance is overwhelming. It is not merely the largest player it is the architect of the bloc’s commercial ecosystem. From heavy machinery and electrical equipment to solar panels and electric vehicles, China supplies the technological inputs that other members need for their own development.
Consider Brazil’s relationship: in 2024, Brazil exported $102.5 billion to BRICS members, and an astonishing 92% of that headed straight to China. Soybeans, iron ore, and oil flow eastward, while Chinese capital goods and electronics return. India finds itself similarly enmeshed, importing Russian oil settled in rubles and advanced manufacturing components from China. This concentration reflects a structural reality where China’s manufacturing appetite consumes the bloc’s commodities, and its factories equip the bloc’s future.
Beyond commerce, China anchors the financial architecture. The New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, has approved $39.71 billion in financing across 123 projects, increasingly denominated in local currencies. China’s role in developing BRICS Pay and the blockchain-based BRICS Bridge payment platform underscores its strategy: reduce dollar reliance, increase yuan influence, and offer alternatives to SWIFT. The BRICS Trade Index, set at 100 in 2009, soared to 301.51 by 2024, graphically illustrating China’s accelerating pull on mutual trade.
Yet this dominance is not extractive in the old colonial sense. It builds mutual gain: Chinese demand creates markets for Brazilian miners, Russian energy firms, and South African processors. The asymmetry fuels resentment in some quarters but remains the most viable engine for integrating a diverse bloc.
Brazil’s Strategic Ascendancy: From Commodity Giant to Indispensable Supplier
While China dominates in volume, Brazil’s role is equally critical. The country’s 2025 BRICS presidency, themed “Strengthening Global South Cooperation for More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance,” elevated its profile. But the real weight comes from the ground: Brazil is the essential supplier of food and minerals that modern civilization demands.
In mining, 2025 revenues hit R$298.8 billion, accounting for 55% of Brazil’s trade surplus. Iron ore constituted 52.6% of that, with record exports of 416.4 million tonnes 71.2% destined for China. Beyond iron, Brazil holds nearly 90% of global niobium reserves, ranks second in graphite and rare earth elements, third in nickel, and sixth in lithium. These are the minerals for electric vehicles, batteries, and advanced electronics the backbone of the green transition. Without Brazil, the bloc’s clean energy ambitions would stall.
On the agricultural front, Brazil is the world’s largest soybean exporter, controlling just over 50% of global market share, and it sends 70% of those beans to China. It holds 27% of the global raw sugar market and is a top exporter of beef, coffee, cotton, and orange juice. The numbers are staggering: over 500 million tons of cargo moved in BRICS trade in 2024, much of it Brazilian soy, meat, and minerals traversing oceans to Asia.
Importantly, Brazil is evolving beyond raw commodities. Exports of vegetable oil, cotton, and sugar surged by double digits in 2024, signaling a shift up the value chain. FDI from BRICS nations into Brazil reached $49.7 billion in 2023, up 14% since 2014, reflecting investor confidence in Brazil’s processing industries and infrastructure.
Brazil’s recent social milestone lifting over 40 million people out of food insecurity and exiting the UN Hunger Map in July 2025 adds moral authority. It proves that inclusive agricultural policies work, making Brazil a natural leader in the bloc’s food security agenda.
De-dollarization in Action: How 67% of BRICS Trade Bypasses the Greenback
Perhaps the most audacious dimension of the trillion-dollar milestone is the quiet rebellion against the dollar. In 2025, 67% of BRICS transactions were settled in national currencies yuan, rubles, reais, rupees, and dirhams dethroning the greenback as the default medium. This isn’t ideological fervor; it’s pragmatic self-defense. Dollar dominance exposes nations to US sanctions, exchange-rate volatility, and seigniorage leakage. So the bloc built escape routes.
China and Russia now conduct most bilateral trade in yuan and rubles. Brazil and China agreed on yuan-real settlement in 2023, circumventing the dollar entirely for billions in commerce. India buys Russian oil in rupees, supporting its currency while securing energy. Once Saudi Arabia joined, the petrodollar model faced its most serious challenge yet, as the Kingdom explores pricing oil in alternative currencies.
The institutional backbone is growing. BRICS Pay offers a decentralized digital payment platform with lower fees and faster settlements than SWIFT, immunizing members from the weaponization of finance. The BRICS Bridge, a blockchain-based multi-sided payment system, aims to connect central bank digital currencies directly, bypassing the dollar-dominated correspondent banking system. These technologies are not futuristic dreams they are live projects.
The New Development Bank (NDB) furthers this shift by issuing local currency loans, sparing borrowers from dollar debt risks. As of mid-2025, its active portfolio reached $34.9 billion, with a growing share in currencies like the renminbi and rand. Unlike the IMF, the NDB imposes no austerity conditionalities, making it a preferred lender for developing nations.
Talk of a common BRICS currency has cooled, with Brazil’s 2025 presidency clarifying no imminent plans for a single unit. However, the underlying momentum remains: through bilateral swaps, digital platforms, and local-currency invoicing, the bloc is proving that trade can thrive without the dollar. This “de-dollarization lite” is arguably more durable than a premature common currency doomed by economic divergence.
Trade Composition: The Hidden Asymmetry and Manufacturing Gap
For all the celebration, the trillion-dollar figure conceals a lopsided structure. Hydrocarbons drove 30% of trade growth from 2019–2024, and seven of ten BRICS members rely on primary products for over 60% of their exports to the bloc. Only China and India boast significant manufacturing heft. The rest Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia remain predominantly raw material suppliers.
This pattern raises uncomfortable questions about neo-dependency. Critics argue that intra-BRICS trade growth is “largely illusory,” based on low-tech resource extraction, with China reaping the value-added gains. Medium-technology exports like Indian propylene polymers have nudged upward, but the overall technological intensity remains modest. Without meaningful manufacturing diversification, other members risk being locked into commodity roles while China races ahead in AI, biopharma, and smart manufacturing.
Internal tariff barriers complicate the picture. The average intra-BRICS tariff is 8.4%, more than four times developed-economy levels. Since 2003, 232 trade-restricting anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures have been imposed within the bloc more than among OECD members excluding the US. Brazil and India have been particularly wary of Chinese industrial competition, erecting protective walls that stifle the kind of frictionless trade a true common market demands.
These tensions are manageable, but they underscore a critical reality: BRICS is a coalition of convenience, not a customs union. The path to deeper integration will require painful compromises on market access, intellectual property, and industrial policy.
Expansion and Evolution: BRICS Plus Reshapes the Global Economic Map
The doors are swinging open. Beyond the ten current members, nine nations are formal partner countries, and about two dozen more have expressed interest or received invitations Turkey, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, and numerous African states. By 2030, BRICS could encompass over half the world’s population and a third of global GDP, transforming the phrase “Global South” from a demographic descriptor into a political-economic force.
This expansion is strategic. Egypt and Ethiopia extend the bloc’s reach across Africa, complementing China’s Belt and Road footprint. Iran’s accession, under heavy Western sanctions, signals that BRICS will accept pariahs that the West rejects. The UAE turns Dubai’s logistics and finance hubs into BRICS arteries. Indonesia anchors Southeast Asia. Each addition layers energy reserves, consumer markets, or critical minerals onto the bloc’s resource base, strengthening complementarity.
Yet heterogeneity brings friction. Consensus-based decision-making means a single veto can stall initiatives. Divergent strategic interests India’s Himalayan rivalry with China, Saudi-Iranian tensions, Russia’s isolation create geopolitical crosscurrents. The NDB navigates these waters by sticking to development finance, but broader political cooperation remains embryonic. The bloc’s future will depend on maintaining a pragmatic, economics-first agenda while managing the nationalist instincts of its members.
Challenges on the Road to True Integration
The gulf between China’s $19 trillion economy (PPP) and Ethiopia’s fledgling market is not just a statistic; it’s a structural barrier. Divergent inflation rates, fiscal policies, and currency stability make monetary harmonization a distant dream. Commodity dependence exposes most members to boom-bust cycles that China can absorb but smaller economies cannot. And geopolitical rivalries the unspoken India-China friction, Russia’s sanctions, Iran’s controversies periodically threaten to fracture the illusion of unity.
External pressures mount, too. The Trump administration’s threats of 100 percent tariffs on BRICS nations could accelerate south-south trade but also tempt members into beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism. If Western markets close, the bloc must ensure internal demand expands sufficiently to absorb exports a task that requires coordinated fiscal expansion and infrastructure investment.
Legal harmonization, dispute resolution, and regulatory alignment remain embryonic. The absence of a BRICS free trade agreement means that bilateral deals and WTO rules still govern commerce. Until members are willing to cede sovereignty over trade policy, the bloc will remain a geopolitical club rather than an integrated economic union.
The Dawn of a Multipolar Trade Order
For all its imperfections, the one-trillion-dollar milestone is a harbinger. South-south trade already exceeds north-north trade, and BRICS is the engine of that shift. China’s bilateral trade with Africa alone ballooned from $2.7 billion in 1990 to over $209 billion in 2022. Similar trajectories are unfolding with Latin America and Southeast Asia. The bloc is not just an alternative; it is becoming the default economic orientation for dozens of developing nations.
Institutional creativity abounds. The NDB, BRICS Pay, the Bridge platform, and the contingency reserve arrangement collectively offer a parallel financial ecosystem. These mechanisms don’t seek to destroy the dollar but to provide choice and choice is power. Even the shelved common currency concept lives on in discussions about a gold-backed Unit or a basket currency, ideas that might resurface once economic conditions align.
Looking ahead, the green transition promises new trade corridors. BRICS holds 80% of the potential for renewable power generation by 2050. Brazil’s critical minerals, China’s solar and EV technology, and Russia’s hydrogen ambitions could weave a clean energy supply chain that bypasses Western manufacturers. The bloc’s collaborative research in AI and biotech further hints at upgrading its technological base, potentially nudging members up the value chain.
Investors and strategists are taking note. While direct exposure to a unified BRICS market remains complex, the concept of “invest in BRICS” is gaining traction. As digital financial infrastructure matures, the prospect of real world tokenization fractional ownership of commodity receipts, infrastructure bonds, or even future currency baskets via blockchain could one day allow global investors to “buy BRICS coins” or hold “BRICS tokens” that track the bloc’s economic output. Such innovation would democratize access to the BRICS growth story and further erode the dollar monopoly. The term “BRICS currency” may currently exist only in white papers, but the building blocks local settlement lanes, central bank digital currencies, and tokenized assets are being assembled in plain sight.
In the end, the trillion-dollar achievement is not about displacing the West overnight. It’s about proving that a different world is possible one where the Global South trades on its own terms, finances its own development, and builds institutions that reflect its own interests. The question is no longer whether BRICS will reshape global trade, but how quickly the old order will adapt or fade into irrelevance.
Sources and Citations
- OEC World – BRICS Trade Profile and Data
- Brazil’s Strategic Minerals in BRICS – In4U Analysis
- Carnegie Endowment – BRICS Expansion and Future of World Order
- BRICS Council – China’s Role in International Trade in Services
- New Development Bank – Investor Presentation October 2025
- BCG – Can BRICS Capitalize on Shifting Global Trade Landscape
- Xinhua – BRICS Local Currency Trade and De-dollarization
- Asian Institute of Research – BRICS as Alternative to Western Dominance
- UNCTAD – Two Decades of Intra-BRICS Trade Trends
- BRICS Brazil – Presidency and Trade Integration Overview