BRICS Finds Fragile Unity in New Delhi
BRICS leaders adopted the "New Delhi Declaration" on the first day of the Leaders' Summit in New Delhi in September 2026.
India hosted the summit as BRICS Chair, a role that drew full support from members for its 2026 chairship. Attendees in Delhi included Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, according to BBC.
The declaration focuses on the war in the Middle East. It expresses "deep concern" over hostilities and urges "maximum restraint." It condemns "attacks on civilian infrastructure and peaceful nuclear facilities" without assigning blame. It also calls for protection of civilians and trade, language that both Iran and the United Arab Emirates backed ahead of the summit, according to Reuters.
The U.S.-led war on Iran split BRICS members ahead of the September 2026 summit, according to Reuters. Iran launched missiles and drones at fellow BRICS member the UAE during the Middle East war. Chinese President Xi Jinping urged BRICS to take a peacemaking role in the Middle East war in September 2026.
Language calibrated to hold
On other dossiers, the text leaves subjects out. It makes no mention of Russia's war in Ukraine. It lists concerns over "indiscriminate rising tariffs," or taxes that raise the price of imports, and condemns unilateral sanctions, or penalties imposed by one country without UN backing, without naming the United States.
The declaration also states that BRICS countries unequivocally condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, a formulation detailed in India's Ministry of External Affairs transcript of a special press briefing on the summit dated September 12, 2026.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the summit that the BRICS group is "not against anyone." He said BRICS leaders should increasingly become "rule-shapers," not "rule-takers." U.S. President Donald Trump previously called BRICS proposals, including potentially linking central-bank digital currencies for cross-border trade, "anti-American." Those currencies are digital versions of national money that could be used to pay across borders.
Twice earlier this year, meetings between BRICS ministers failed to produce a joint statement. BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs/International Relations met on 14 and 15 May 2026. That session in New Delhi ended without agreement on a joint statement.
Fractures managed, not resolved
India and China engaged in a deadly clash along their disputed border in 2020. Six years later, Xi and Modi met again in Delhi. The bloc now contains both sides of another conflict, after Iran's strikes on the UAE in an active regional war.
The broader context here is a consensus system under load. BRICS operates without weighted voting or enforcement. Joint text requires unanimity, meaning every member must agree. Failure at ministerial level twice this year showed how easily one disagreement can block a statement. Success in Delhi depended on strict procedure and language that names no attacker.
In my view, the Middle East formula is the core point to watch. Restraint plus protection of civilians and trade gives Tehran and Abu Dhabi a shared off-ramp. Condemnation of strikes on civilian infrastructure and peaceful nuclear facilities notes Iranian losses without endorsing Iranian retaliation against Gulf targets. It also avoids a ceasefire demand, which would have forced members to agree on the aggressor, the timeline and verification.
Looking at what this means for economic statecraft, the tariff and sanctions paragraphs follow the same method. Concern over tariff escalation speaks to export-dependent members without a direct confrontation with Washington. Condemnation of unilateral sanctions preserves the bloc's long-standing legal objection to measures applied beyond one country's borders, while withholding the U.S. name. That allows India, which negotiates bilaterally with Washington, to sign the same page as Iran and Russia, which are under U.S. sanctions regimes.
For practitioners, the test is implementation. A declaration urging restraint does not create monitoring, deconfliction channels or settlement systems. The reference to central-bank digital currency linkage remains a proposal characterized by Trump as anti-American, not a live clearing mechanism. The shift Modi described, from rule-takers to rule-shapers, will be measured by whether Delhi can turn chairship consensus into working-group mandates on payments, energy transit security and civilian protection that survive the next ministerial.
