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The BRICS Summit for 2025 will be held in Brazil, marking the event’s return to the country for the first time since 2019, when it was organized in Brasília. This time, in 2025, the summit will take place in Rio de Janeiro, the former capital of Brazil and still the country’s most globally recognized (and admired) city.

This is yet another BRICS summit taking place under the shadow of a tense geopolitical transition from a unipolar moment to a potential multipolar world order. This is precisely why the summits from 2022 onward have become the most significant in BRICS history. While previous summits focused on discussions about investments and logistics, the current agenda revolves around reshaping global institutions, building alternatives to the dollar and Western payment systems, as well as numerous cultural initiatives to promote multipolarity.

However, it is evident that some BRICS countries are more engaged in these changes than others. If we consider the expanded BRICS formation, countries like Russia, China, Iran, and more recently India, are more eager to accelerate global transformations. Other members—including Brazil—are more cautious about these changes and would prefer to slow them down or even postpone them indefinitely if alternatives exist.

We can see hints of this in the way Brazil is organizing the BRICS Summit. Typically, the event is held toward the end of the year, both for prestige and to allow time to achieve more results from the previous summit before the next one. This has been the case for most editions.

However, the BRICS Summit organized by Brazil in 2025 will take place on July 6th and 7th. The justification for this is that Brazil will also host COP30—the international environmental event focused on climate change—in November 2025. Apparently, the Brazilian government did not want the BRICS Summit to overshadow COP30, signaling what it considers a priority.

Needless to say, a BRICS Summit held just six months after the previous one will have relatively little new to present, meaning the potential of the coalition’s projects will not be fully utilized. For example, there may be no major developments on the important agenda of de-dollarization, that is, the construction of an alternative financial architecture.

Another notable fact is that at the last BRICS Summit, Brazil vetoed Venezuela’s entry into the bloc, surprising the world and even startling other BRICS partners.

Such facts must be understood in the context of Brazil’s own perspective on international relations, which leans more toward institutional multilateralism than strict multipolarity. For Brazil, the BRICS represent a platform for dialogue and negotiation in the realm of investments and international trade, with the primary function of diversifying these spheres. However, Brazil does not yet see the BRICS as a tool for radical reform of international institutions or the global order.

This is why, in general, Brazilian foreign policy does not prioritize the BRICS over its relations with the European Union, the United States, or even other blocs and countries. On the contrary, Brazil considers it necessary to balance every pro-BRICS move with analogous moves in favor of the European Union and the U.S.

A telling example is that while Brazil pushes for de-dollarization projects, it has also refused to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, while seeking a free trade agreement with the European Union and strengthening ties with the U.S. (including military agreements for equipment purchases and joint military exercises on Brazilian soil).

These challenges were confirmed during the Ukrainian conflict. Brazil positioned itself as a mediator but was largely ineffective, primarily because in its attempt to balance relations with Russia and the West, it failed to address Russian demands or the realities on the battlefield (even condemning Russia at the UN on occasion), while simultaneously refusing to support Ukraine’s war efforts.

Interestingly, this ambiguous stance is counterbalanced by Brazil’s presidency of the New Development Bank (the so-called “BRICS Bank”), which has been under the leadership of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s former president, for years. Rousseff, in contrast to the more cautious position of the Brazilian government, has repeatedly shown a keen interest in de-dollarization and the construction of an alternative financial architecture.

In conclusion, these reflections on Brazil highlight the need for caution, as it is not possible to fully count on Brazil’s support for more audacious initiatives that directly challenge the U.S. and the European Union. Nonetheless, Brazil will always be interested in more modest and discreet initiatives aimed at reforming the international order without directly challenging the current unipolar hegemony.