[ROUNDUP] BRICS Rising: The New Global Trade Superpower in 2026?

Machine Operated Script:

Annik (00:01.92)
Okay. Hi everyone. Welcome back to Simply Trade Roundup. My name’s Annick. I’ll be your host today, as I am always, and I have a special guest with me. I do have to make a disclaimer. So this is our second day recording, 27th time around. We actually just tried again right now and then lost internet again on my side, which, I mean, it’s been a journey and we’re really trying to make this episode happen for you. So please…

Hold on with me because this episode has to be good after all the tries that we went through But with no further ado, let me try to introduce my guest without interruptions. Hopefully hopefully so She is a master of arts in international trade and economic Diplomacy. She has a foundation strong foundation. Let me clarify in Chinese and international relations Which that is incredible and she got it from San Francisco State University

Maria Pechurina (00:35.697)
No pressure.

Annik (00:59.278)
I’ve never met someone that has a strong foundation in Chinese and I think that is so admirable. But let me introduce, well, not done yet. She also is a director of international trade at Peacock Tariff Consulting. Wow, incredible. And her name is Maria Petrina and I met her at ICPA. All right. So with no further ado, we’re still here.

Thank you Maria for coming onto the Simply Trade podcast. I am so excited to have a conversation with you.

Maria Pechurina (01:31.951)
Like Rhysonic, thanks for having me.

Annik (01:34.318)
Awesome. So I guess I should clarify what we’re talking about today. So we kind of discussed this before. We wanted to find a topic that has not been discussed yet to its full potential. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it once, actually maybe once in a podcast in 2025, but other than that, not much. today we’ll be talking about bricks, which we will go more in depth in.

on in on wow incredible too much coffee but no maria will give you all the gist and i am going to try to ask the best questions for you so we can all be more educated on this topic and see how it will shape 2026 and you know how we will get there so with no further ado here we go now let’s start by identifying what

bricks is who’s involved and what is their approach to running their correlation.

Maria Pechurina (02:44.945)
For sure. Yeah. I’m happy to start with just a little bit of background on what BRICS are and what this block is really all about and hopefully communicate the significance behind watching these developments. So BRICS started as an acronym, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. And it’s evolved into something much, much larger because by 2024, like early 2025, we’ve seen six new members admitted, those being Egypt,

Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. And then 13 additional partner nations were invited at the October 2024 Kazan Summit of BRICS. And 9 out of 13 accepted that special partnership status.

And just to give you some numbers to communicate the scale, BRICS amounts to 40 % of global GDP. That is also expected to increase in 2026. So BRICS plus now represents nearly half of the world’s output. Also, they have over 40 % of global population and those populations are also projected to continue growing.

Bricks amounts to about 25 % of global merchandise exports and Bricks countries export.

quarter of global world trade goods. And last but not least, with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE formalizing their membership, BRICS now has the potential of controlling or overseeing about half of the world’s oil production. So BRICS is not just a fragile alternative to Western trade, but it’s, as I mentioned, about half of the world’s economic

Maria Pechurina (04:36.404)
output and it’s going to continue increasing.

Annik (04:40.78)
say it’s powerful or even a superpower at this point because we see the United States as this large power, but looking at BRICS and looking where they came from and where they’re now, it seems like just they’re splurging in growth. Now, before we get into the 2026 trends, because I think that’s where we kind of want to end up, in your view, how did 2025

changed the global trade landscape, especially through US policy. What were the biggest shocks that pushed countries toward BRICS style cooperation?

Maria Pechurina (05:19.757)
Absolutely. Yeah. So as we all know, the US has been imposing sweeping tariffs on everyone. And naturally, other countries have felt that it may be time and have felt the necessity to strengthen their other relationships. Even the European Union, our closest ally of the United States, you know, they’re still finding themselves between a rock and a hard place, having to kind of cater to the whims

of the United States but also needing to continue doing business with some of these other countries. something that I think is quite interesting about 2025 is that we’ve seen some unprecedented kind of collaboration between BRICS nations. To give you an example,

in August 2025 when the US imposed a 50 % or total 50 % tariff on India, partially due to their purchases of crude oil from Russia.

and then the reciprocal tariff, which 50 % is extremely high. And that essentially pushed India to rekindle relations with China and double down on their trade regionally. And just to give you kind of some background on the significance of this, India and China have not been collaborating in such a way. There was a border.

conflict in 2022, or pardon me, in 2020, and Prime Minister Modi has not even visited China since 2018. So because…

Maria Pechurina (07:03.537)
I’m not going to say because of the United States, but global trade, everything’s connected. India and China ended up rekindling relations. And China is also tripling down on trade with Brazil. And we’re just seeing so much more integration within the bloc. So I would definitely watch out for that in the next year.

Annik (07:25.388)
Yeah, it’s interesting, especially because a lot of businesses and corporations are trying to move away from China because of the tariffs. it seems that India was always in the talks and they’re kind of swaying to India to collaborate more with them, but they were also tariffs that were put on India. So I feel like that’s also not the best option anymore.

Maria Pechurina (07:47.746)
Exactly.

Annik (07:50.838)
And now it’s like, okay, what is the best option? But recently I talked to a friend, which I’m kind of getting off topic, but I definitely will get back on, promise. And he was telling me how they still import from China. And I’m like, that must be expensive. And he’s like, believe it or not, it’s cheaper than getting our stuff from here. And yeah, from the United States. And I was like, wow, isn’t that actually what…

Maria Pechurina (08:11.621)
from the United States or from India? Yeah.

Annik (08:18.838)
something that we’re trying to not achieve. We’re trying to get something from the United States and make it cheaper than if we got it from China. That is why we’re putting the tariffs on. mean, the tariffs are security reasons, but ultimately that’s kind of what we want to achieve. So I found that funny and I, yeah.

Maria Pechurina (08:27.973)
Yeah.

Maria Pechurina (08:35.929)
I also was reading kind of along similar lines. I read that some US manufacturers, because of tariffs and because of the increasing cost of input that they absolutely have to source from overseas, they actually have had to let go their US staff in the manufacturing plants. So it’s again, that kind of, you know, I see the objective, I see the point, the means of getting there may lack follow through. So.

Annik (09:00.536)
Yeah.

Annik (09:06.582)
think, to be honest, it’s been so long coming that we just made so many mistakes. And I don’t want to say mistakes because, mean, we’re only on this earth once. I mean, we’re only alive right now and we don’t really know what’s right or wrong and we don’t know how to correctly move forward. And I speak for everyone. I speak for government. I mean, we’re all trying to do our best, I would think. Not everyone.

Maria Pechurina (09:31.601)
I would hope, yeah.

Annik (09:34.664)
to do their best and we don’t know what kind of decision will lead us to the most successful route. We just don’t. I mean, we can expect, can try to think, but we don’t know. So I think there’s been mistakes that led us here and it’s hard to get away from it. And manufacturing is just not the way we want it to be in the United States and we don’t know how to fix it. And I don’t really know what the right way is and I don’t know if it’s possible.

Anyways, jumping back on the bricks train. obviously we have a lot of trade professionals listening. So I want to ask for you, US based trade or customs professional who was already juggling section 301 anti-dumping, know, ADCBD and new tariffs lines. Why should they care about what’s happening inside bricks? I know we said what kind of superpower they are, but what’s the practical relevance for them?

Maria Pechurina (10:31.549)
Sure, yeah. I’m gonna try to kind of not freak anyone out here, but this is just kind of what I’m seeing and observing. Right before Christmas, Onik, let’s take it easy on them, but please follow up if you want fear. So 2025 essentially broke the global trade system as we knew it, and 2026 is really when that break is going to become…

Annik (10:40.376)
actually freak people out. That’s fine. I love that. Happy holidays.

Maria Pechurina (10:59.553)
a lot more permanent and solidify for businesses. This means that establishing parallel supply chains is no longer optional. It’s going to be the new normal. So companies essentially need to prepare to operate in two distinct regulatory frameworks simultaneously because as we know, the United States, the EU track

There are strict origin requirements. There is the dollar settlement channels, high sanctions compliance friction. There’s a lot of labor and environmental standards that need to be adhered to. And there is also expanded investment screening. We also saw

that the de minimis exemption from the United States has been scrapped and the European Union is also kind of safeguarding itself right now against cheap Chinese goods because it’s just been a lot coming their way since the US, since the end of August really. But we’re also gonna see this other kind of bricks track where there’s going to be a rise in local currency settlement, Russia, India, China, Brazil.

South Africa, they’re doing trade between themselves in non-dollar currency. And if things continue on this trajectory, then we may see that US importers may find themselves in a situation or brokers, you know, where they’re handling documentation that’s denominated in different currencies. And of course, compliance is going to be huge for the US EU side. Bricks.

naturally has compliance and measures that people need to adhere to, but the origin documentation is much looser and there’s a lot of integration within the regional, or I guess it’s a very vast region, but there’s a lot of regional integration within BRICS. So for US business people and importers, it may be worth exploring how you can kind of tap into that network.

Annik (12:59.586)
Yeah.

Maria Pechurina (12:59.658)
and maybe hopefully benefit from being integrated that way as long as you’re compliant.

Annik (13:05.838)
And for the US as a whole, do you think they’re trying to align themselves a little bit more with the bricks? What is your standpoint on that? You know, as in the government, not the trade people, you know, that are working, because I feel like they kind of have to, or they want to align themselves with it because what ultimate, well, I’m going to let you speak. Like, what is, what’s your opinion on this?

Maria Pechurina (13:21.4)
Right, yeah.

Maria Pechurina (13:31.267)
Yeah, it’s tricky, right? Because what we’re seeing with the US measures right now and how it’s manifesting in the world is that tariffs are being used like political tools.

punitive, their countries are being punished for their politics in the case of Brazil or they’re meeting their energy needs without breaking US sanctions, but the US wasn’t happy about the Russian oil purchases. So that’s where the system is shifting. And to answer your question, I don’t think the US is trying to align with the bloc whatsoever. We saw a really forgiving agreement with China back in November, which arguably

I would say from, in my humble opinion, China gave fewer concessions than the US did. So that kind of shows a shift in dynamics there as well, just that balance of power. And I think what may end up happening just based on the couple of factors I just mentioned is that

the US may start, may double down on almost competing with the BRICS block. And that may lead to some more tensions or added tariffs or, you know, secondary tariffs, kind of like how we saw in the case of India, where because India buys Russian oil, now US is tariffing it. So we may see more measures like that, that don’t necessarily have much precedent and that are just going to make our lives harder as

professionals so expect expect more of that.

Annik (15:11.47)
Yeah, okay. So with that backdrop, let’s walk through, you know, you kind of said you wanted to go over trends. So let’s walk through concrete trade trends to watch in 2026 and what they mean for your day-to-day work or, you know, how we kind of prepare for 2026 for the new year.

Maria Pechurina (15:34.787)
Yeah, I mean, I’ll do my best to prepare the listeners, but hey, we’re all in this together. It’s just more and more uncertainty and big shifts. So just bear with me. But I do think that the first trend they wanted to outline and it kind of touched on this a little bit already, but

Annik (15:39.406)
Okay.

Maria Pechurina (15:51.281)
It’s really that shift to more of a bipolar trading system. I mean, we’re seeing the United States currently really heavily favoring bilateral agreements over any sort of, know, even USMCA is no longer guaranteed as that renegotiations coming up in June, which is terrifying, but whatever. Let’s talk bricks. So for decades, you know, the US really, the US anchored multilateral system was the default and businesses could source globally.

Annik (16:11.657)
Ha ha ha!

Maria Pechurina (16:21.234)
with minimal political friction. Now that’s kind of over. Like we’re having friction even with our closest allies.

changed in 2025 and kind of how it’s going to play out going into 2026 is that US tariff actions accelerated a shift away from those multilateral norms and countries began choosing sides and they’re going to kind of continue to do that and also experience more pressure. I’ll give you an example. Indonesia signed a pretty comprehensive trade agreement with the European Union just a few months back.

and now Indonesia is a new member of BRICS and obviously they’re in Asia, Southeast Asia, and there’s that geographical proximity and just the kind of

pressure and the kind of historical relationship they have with China, it really creates some economic distress potentially down the line where, you the US might not like something that they’re doing with China and then we’re going to see it play out all over again. And those are kind of those secondary tariffs I was talking about. And

Based on this kind of trend of bipolarity, we’re gonna continue seeing intra-block trade deepening, especially between China, India, and Brazil. And then Russia is always gonna be in the background, because this is exactly what they want. In 2022, when the conflict started, they became…

Maria Pechurina (17:51.205)
completely isolated from the global financial system and Swift. And that’s really when they started putting all of their eggs into that basket of doing trade and rubles, UN, rupees, you know. we’re gonna see more of that. My second kind of…

thing that I think is really interesting. I totally nerded out on this when I was preparing for our conversation today, but there is this kind of narrative of de-dollarization that’s been happening. It’s almost like a meme in a way, because on the one hand, it came up back in 2024 at Open of the Summits, and they proposed to create a BRICS currency.

So some leaders actually held up this like fake bill, like a mock-up of a bill and said, this is what we’re going to be using now. Obviously the West freaked out. was President Trump. This was, think, fall 2024. So he wasn’t president yet, but he just straight up came out and said, I’m going to impose 100 % tariffs on bricks.

on every single country if you even entertain this idea, which is fair, you know, we want a stable dollar. It’s our main, you know, driver of the global economy. Don’t fix it if it’s not broken. You know, I can name 10 more cliches along those lines. But even though Bricks kind of dropped that conversation about creating a brand new thing.

Annik (19:10.638)
Yeah.

Maria Pechurina (19:28.42)
we did see a ton of alternative settlement channels rise. So this is instead of making new money, they’re basically each player. And I can go through kind of the list of the different.

systems that are being implemented, but China basically has an alternative swift so they can handle payments in Chinese yuan, they can handle payments in rubles, and the swift system and the dollar is never a part of that conversation so they can settle these huge balances.

on their own terms, completely without Western intervention and obviously no Western scrutiny or surveillance that way. And I think we’re going to see a rise in that because, you know, 90 % of Russia’s trade also is now settled in national currencies, rubles with China, Brazilian girls with Brazil and rupees with India. And

Annik (20:27.214)
That’s so interesting, there’s no mention of the dollar.

Maria Pechurina (20:33.142)
Exactly, yeah. So this is kind of… and the reason why it matters is because…

this is shortening demand for the dollar. mean, it’s such an old system. been, it seemed unbreakable and it’s still really strong. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that, you know, we really need to start worrying about this today. At the same time, this is a trend, right? So we’re seeing these payments being settled, these large accounts for natural resources, commodities being settled in non-dollar currencies.

So that’s definitely something I would advise watching. Not sure when that fake bill is going to come back around or if, but it’s already happening in the background, which is kind of fascinating. I’m going to pause before I delve into the third trend. Any questions or feedback so far? Anything I can elaborate on? we good?

Annik (21:14.734)
Yeah.

Annik (21:24.526)
Okay.

Annik (21:29.422)
I think we’re good. I think it’s so interesting. I think those are great trends to touch on. I do have a follow-up question after your third trend. But I think those will give people enough to look into and say, who are we trading with and what are we doing and how can we use this to our advantage? Because that’s the biggest question, right? How can we use anything that breaks

Maria Pechurina (21:56.174)
How can we use this for advantage, yeah?

Annik (21:58.988)
are doing to our advantage. And maybe we can lead on that after our third trend.

Maria Pechurina (22:06.19)
Sure thing, yeah. So my third trend is expect more punitive tariffs as political leverage.

what I named with the case with India, which is US imposing an additional 25 % duty because of Russian oil purchases. Even though India technically did not violate any sanctions, it purchased oil from a sanctioned entity, but this alone didn’t violate IEPA or OSU regulations to my best knowledge. But the tariff penalty was explicit and immediate. And, you know, obviously,

there’s so much uncertainty in 2025 and if there’s even more in 2026, companies can no longer assume tariff rates are predictable based on product classification or even precedent. And political alignment with the supplier’s government may now directly affect tariff exposure, because we may also see more reciprocal tariffs from the other side onto the United States. So…

prices may go up and for domestic policies in other countries can essentially now trigger new tariffs. To me, this sounds volatile.

it sounds unstable. It’s extremely hard for businesses to plan ahead, especially with that first kind of trend I mentioned with the world becoming a little bit more bipolar. And I would say multipolar, but the thing about bricks is that even though

Maria Pechurina (23:51.281)
there are so many big countries in the block. China definitely has a lot of sway and a lot of power and they’re doing a lot behind the scenes to kind of, they just are very powerful in many ways, I’d say. So there is, they do have a lot of influence within the block. So that’s why I keep saying bipolar rather than multipolar because BRICS does have that kind of center of gravity in China as well.

Annik (24:19.03)
Yeah, think the unstable is the new stable in trade. if we’re thinking about this, so if you’re sitting in a US trade compliance or sourcing role, what should you be doing in 2026 to prepare for this shift that we kind of discussed toward a deeper intra-bricks trade and more non-dollar settlement, which we have heard a lot of times this

Maria Pechurina (24:23.76)
yeah, I like it. I mean I don’t, but I do.

Annik (24:47.754)
this year, I think. I remember having some conversations on the non-dollar settlements and moving away from the dollar. And there’s been conversations in 2025. I wonder if that will be a large conversation to return to in 2026. Not sure because there’s so many other things that people are talking about and you can’t really keep up. But if you are sitting in a US trade compliance or sourcing role, what

What can you do? How can you prepare other than staying updated on these kind of things? What do you think that should be in the discussion in their offices right now?

Maria Pechurina (25:27.578)
For sure, yeah. So honestly, a bipolar trade system means that every company and our compliance family will need essentially two playbooks, one for the US EU based ecosystem and one for anything BRICS linked and for any exposure. tariffs, sanctions, currency and origin rules are now one conversation.

And compliance is where those threads really come together into decisions and like those actionable steps for businesses. expect to have your hands full moving into next year if 2025 wasn’t enough. But yeah, you kind of have to rethink your supply chain and become almost like an architect of this dual.

Annik (26:08.077)
Yeah

Maria Pechurina (26:17.442)
track, so to speak. So chain A being US EU markets and remember always watching out for tight origin rules, dollar settlement and of course, OFAC and investment screening, excuse me. And chain B being bricks facing. So potentially higher tariff volatility. So that’s where it’s really important to kind of stay up to date. Try to, I know that we’re all getting bombarded with the news nowadays, but

just try to kind of keep an eye out. I would recommend just following some some voices of trade on LinkedIn. Honestly, that’s kind of the best way I found just because if you start reading the news on, you know, even very reputable publications, there’s a lot of sensationalism there. So yeah, try to keep up, try to anticipate any potential terror volatility on Bricks Nation’s but

Just be prepared because I know it’s really tempting to potentially start sourcing from somewhere with a lower…

cost and not avoid tariffs obviously, but I know that some people are shifting production and purchasing. And I would just urge fellow compliance professionals to continue prioritizing compliance. And yeah, it’s not always going to be affordable or cheap, but it’s safe and secure. And if you do kind of play that bricks exposure right and try to

take advantage of the partnerships within the block, then I think there is a potential there to at least keep going and not go out of business entirely. So.

Maria Pechurina (28:11.192)
a lot more tariff and scenario planning, plan to kind of play both sides, if I may. And obviously we can’t control tariff announcements, but we can pre-bake responses. So compliance should always be at the table when we decide which suppliers we can walk away from, you know, in 30, 60, 90 days.

Those are my two cents on the subject. know it’s not terribly helpful, but I think thinking through and making those risk matrices will take you a long way at this time.

Annik (28:41.612)
Yeah.

I think it is.

Annik (28:53.006)
I think it is helpful. I think the only issue I see is that companies can act or be proactive however they want to, but if the United States as a whole creates this narrative for themselves where Brics is going to isolate themselves and leave the US a little out, it kind of screws over the companies if they even want to work with Brics because…

You know, it’s not really up to them on how it breaks through the United States. It’s up to the government. It’s up to the people that make decisions in this country. And, right, I mean, that’s kind of my thought.

Maria Pechurina (29:24.174)
Mm-hmm.

Maria Pechurina (29:31.343)
Yeah.

but there is something to…

It’s, this is where it really helps that we live in a democracy because something that obviously, you know, the Amazons of the world and any large conglomerate, they have those ties in DC and potentially can get face time with the administration or decision makers. But what I’m seeing with smaller businesses and importers is actually a rise in going to trade groups and industry groups and then lobbying as a block.

Annik (30:00.878)
Okay.

Maria Pechurina (30:04.272)
So if there is a regulation, a tariff ruling that’s really throwing off business, I mean, it all is, but if there is something very specific and you find other companies, competitors even, you know, this is unprecedented times and people are coming together to face the issue at hand. I have seen some, some success that way where just power and numbers and communicate with your

Annik (30:21.356)
Yeah.

Maria Pechurina (30:33.23)
policymakers because we do have those channels in the United States. We’re very lucky.

Annik (30:38.222)
I’m glad you brought that up. I think that’s a great way to round it up because telling this to small businesses and business owners, I think is helpful. There is not much a lot of people can do in the situation that we are in, especially with the tariffs and stuff, but having a small voice, I think can, a lot of small voices together can be a grand voice to make a difference. So I love that you just shared that.

Maria Pechurina (31:04.336)
It’s like compound interest. Power numbers.

Annik (31:06.153)
Right, right. And the more the merrier. the more the merrier. So Maria, do you want to say anything else or do you want to round up with something? Do you have any other notes or? I know you have a lot to say. That’s why I’m asking.

Maria Pechurina (31:22.134)
Yeah, no, and you’re totally right. have…

A lot of notes, but I think for the scope of this conversation, again, just stay informed, stay calm, prepare for everything. But also at a certain point, as you mentioned, it’s kind of outside of our control. So do what you can and hey, at least trade compliance is, is popular now the front office. So yeah, make sure that you’re communicating with the C-suite in those plain terms.

that they love, put everything in money and weigh the risks and like if we do this we’re gonna lose this much but if we do this we’re not gonna lose as much they love that. But ultimately I do think that 2026 may be a little bit chaotic but

the world’s big, is important and I do think that there is potential for at least some structure and settling down, especially with that court case, that little thing in the Supreme Court that we’re all watching. So yeah, hopefully by the second half of 2026, things start settling down a little bit. But yeah, I think that’s…

Annik (32:32.13)
Yeah.

Annik (32:42.306)
Very hopeful. Yeah.

Maria Pechurina (32:44.61)
A good hopeful note to leave it on that.

Annik (32:47.758)
Yeah, a hopeful way to round off this episode. Also, without Trade, we wouldn’t be able to stay alive. Trade’s super important and I’m glad for this conversation with you. It was very interesting. And I hope our listeners got something out of it. Again, you can find these clips on LinkedIn. You can find it on YouTube and you can subscribe and follow us anywhere you, you know, on all social media outlets.

We want to thank you for listening and we wish you a very happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and so forth. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you back next week for our last episode of the year. Bye.