There is a movement towards the meeting: Brazil has confirmed the holding of the BRICS summit on September 8

On September 8, BRICS representatives will meet via videoconference. The composition of the participants has not been confirmed, but the summit is open to all members of the association, the Brazilian presidential administration told Izvestia. The agenda of the meeting will include issues of multipolarity, the upcoming 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30), as well as conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine. Experts believe that the issue of a collective response to the US tariff policy may also be included in the list of topics of the summit. Earlier, the Brazilian leader stated that this is exactly what he plans to meet with his BRICS colleagues for.

What will the BRICS members discuss at the next meeting?

BRICS members will meet online on September 8, the administration of the Brazilian president told Izvestia.

— We confirm that the BRICS virtual summit will be held next Monday, September 8th. It will not be devoted to discussing tariffs, we will talk about multipolarity, COP30 and the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. We have no confirmation of the presence of specific countries, but it is open to all BRICS members," said Gustavo Raposo, director of the International Media Department at the Brazilian Presidential Administration.

The Russian Embassy in Brazil neither confirmed nor denied the information about Russia's participation in the summit.

Brazil holds the BRICS presidency this year. The meeting at the level of heads of state took place in early July, and the Russian delegation was led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Luis Inacio Lula da Silva spoke about his intention to hold a meeting in a virtual format back in mid-August. Then he suggested that the countries of the association jointly develop a response to the policy of US trade duties.

— Together with BRICS, we will hold a teleconference. It's being organized now. We must discuss within the framework of the BRICS what we can do to improve the economic situation in all countries that have suffered [from the introduction of US duties]," the Brazilian leader said at the time.

According to the Brazilian press, the summit is being prepared by the chief adviser to the Brazilian President, Celso Amorim. In particular, to work out the program of the meeting, he was supposed to go to a military parade in China in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Victory over militaristic Japan and the end of World War II, and there meet with politicians and diplomats from the BRICS countries. The Brazilian side is most interested in having the leaders of Russia, China, India and South Africa present at the discussions.

The event should be held at the highest level with the participation of heads of state and government, the Brazilian Ministry of Finance told Izvestia, noting that the agency itself was not involved in the preparation and did not contact colleagues from the BRICS countries for this purpose.

One of the topics of the summit, according to CNN Brasil, may be the discussion of the reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

— The convening of an extraordinary summit on such important issues in such a short time demonstrates the growing importance of the BRICS as an international organization, this format clearly goes beyond the consultative club, gradually turning the organization into a regulator of political processes of an alternative pole of power. The policy of Lula da Silva, who brought Brazil back to the international stage, also plays a huge role in this, and he is ready to make every effort to maintain a sovereign course for his country and for all BRICS countries," Egor Lidovskaya, director of the Hugo Chavez Latin American Center, told Izvestia.

Trump's tariff policy against the BRICS countries

Since the beginning of the year, the United States has been imposing duties against its trading partners. In July, on the eve of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, the host of the White House threatened the countries supporting the association with additional 10 percent duties in addition to the existing ones. Before that, Donald Trump promised to impose tariffs of 100% if the BRICS countries tried to replace the dollar.

Among the members of the association, India and Brazil were subjected to the greatest pressure from the US tariff policy.

On August 6, import duties from India increased to 50% due to the fact that the country buys Russian oil and petroleum products. Trump accused the country of "always purchasing most of its military equipment from Russia." He was unhappy that India, along with China, is among the largest buyers of Russian energy resources, while the volume of their imports from the United States remains minimal. At the same time, when India offered the United States to reduce duties on American goods to zero, Trump replied that it was "too late", New Delhi should have made this decision many years ago.

As for Brazil, duties on its products also reached 50%, but exceptions affected strategic industries such as aircraft manufacturing, energy and agriculture. Answering questions from journalists on September 3, Vladimir Putin noted that the US duties on Brazil are related to domestic political developments, and not to Ukraine.

In response to Trump's tariffs, the Latin American state ordered the initiation of retaliatory measures at the end of August, taking advantage of the reciprocity law introduced in April: it allows responding to unilateral actions by other countries that harm its international competitiveness. However, it is not yet clear what exactly Brazil may introduce, and the approval process may take an average of seven months.

In the meantime, Brasilia expects to expand the number of trading partners in order to reduce the impact of US duties on the national economy. In particular, the Vice President of the Republic Geraldo Alckmin recently paid a visit to Mexico, and he plans to visit India in the near future.

— Strengthening cooperation within the BRICS will in itself be a collective response to the economic pressure of the United States, whether it is explicitly stated or not. Creating an alternative settlement model, which is now part of the BRICS' tasks, is the only way to solve problems with attempts by the United States to put pressure on sovereign countries, and Trump's tariff policy only accelerates the processes that have already been launched, highlighting their unavoidable necessity, Yegor Lidovskaya believes.

It is worth noting that the United States has not yet imposed high tariffs against China. In August, Washington and Beijing pledged to make changes to the calculation of duties and suspend the implementation of 24 percent tariffs for another 90 days, while maintaining the remaining 10 percent.

In the case of Moscow, Trump has repeatedly stated that he does not impose sanctions against Russia while negotiating on Ukraine. Nevertheless, the American leader regularly states that Washington is ready to take certain measures if there is no progress in resolving the crisis.