- 2 days ago
The Elite Trap: Why BRICS Nations Are Still Funding the Dollar reveals how BRICS nations challenge US dollar hegemony, driving dedollarization while systemic forces continue funding the dollar worldwide.
Welcome to Think BRICS. In an evolving multipolar world economy, discussions surrounding de-dollarization dominate international headlines, yet the structural realities governing cross-border capital flows present a far more complex picture. In this deep dive, political economist Radhika Desai examines the institutional mechanisms, domestic elite interests, and reserve management policies that prevent emerging markets from decoupling overnight.
Even as high-level dialogues at every BRICS summit focus on creating a viable BRICS reserve currency and expanding trade settled outside Western clearing corridors, major developing economies continue recycling surplus capital into US debt. We analyze the structural conflict of BRICS vs dollar supremacy, tracing how domestic financial institutions in the Global South balance liquidity needs with long-term geopolitical sovereignty. By addressing the root causes of capital flight, treasury purchases, and currency peg dynamics, this analysis clarifies why dismantling dollar hegemony requires fundamental domestic structural transformation alongside international trade reorganization.
To maintain an analytical focus on institutional political economy, this breakdown deliberately excludes speculative retail foreign exchange trading strategies, get-rich-quick investment advice, or unverified claims regarding a gold-backed digital BRICS currency replacing global fiat overnight. It does not provide portfolio allocation recommendations or day-trading signals tied to daily yield curve fluctuations in the global economy.
Furthermore, this discussion avoids sensationalized narratives predicting an instantaneous collapse of the US dollar, nor does it address de dollarisation through short-term bilateral diplomatic rhetoric disconnected from concrete financial architecture, central banking balance sheets, and real debt obligations across the emerging world.
You can follow Prod Radhika Desai here: @RadDesai
#BRICS #DeDollarization #geopolitics
00:00 – The Elite Trap: Why BRICS Nations Still Fund US Dollar Hegemony
02:15 – Weaponized Interdependence: How Economic Sanctions Reshaped Global Trade
05:10 – The End of Globalization and the Rise of a Multipolar World
08:30 – SWIFT Alternatives and Cross-Border Settlements in BRICS Local Currencies
11:45 – Glenn Diesen Interview: Can the Global South Escape Dollar Dominance?
14:50 – Digital Sovereignty and Information Warfare in 21st-Century Geopolitics
17:25 – De-Dollarization Reality Check: What the Future of Globalization Holds
🌐 https://thinkbrics.world
🌍 @ThinkBRICS_de | @ThinkBRICS_es | @ThinkBRICS_pt
🎥 @ThinkBRICSChronicles | @BRICSbusiness
📰 Newsletter: https://thinkbrics.substack.com
☕ Support: https://buymeacoffee.com/ThinkBRICS
?
Welcome to Think BRICS. In an evolving multipolar world economy, discussions surrounding de-dollarization dominate international headlines, yet the structural realities governing cross-border capital flows present a far more complex picture. In this deep dive, political economist Radhika Desai examines the institutional mechanisms, domestic elite interests, and reserve management policies that prevent emerging markets from decoupling overnight.
Even as high-level dialogues at every BRICS summit focus on creating a viable BRICS reserve currency and expanding trade settled outside Western clearing corridors, major developing economies continue recycling surplus capital into US debt. We analyze the structural conflict of BRICS vs dollar supremacy, tracing how domestic financial institutions in the Global South balance liquidity needs with long-term geopolitical sovereignty. By addressing the root causes of capital flight, treasury purchases, and currency peg dynamics, this analysis clarifies why dismantling dollar hegemony requires fundamental domestic structural transformation alongside international trade reorganization.
To maintain an analytical focus on institutional political economy, this breakdown deliberately excludes speculative retail foreign exchange trading strategies, get-rich-quick investment advice, or unverified claims regarding a gold-backed digital BRICS currency replacing global fiat overnight. It does not provide portfolio allocation recommendations or day-trading signals tied to daily yield curve fluctuations in the global economy.
Furthermore, this discussion avoids sensationalized narratives predicting an instantaneous collapse of the US dollar, nor does it address de dollarisation through short-term bilateral diplomatic rhetoric disconnected from concrete financial architecture, central banking balance sheets, and real debt obligations across the emerging world.
You can follow Prod Radhika Desai here: @RadDesai
#BRICS #DeDollarization #geopolitics
00:00 – The Elite Trap: Why BRICS Nations Still Fund US Dollar Hegemony
02:15 – Weaponized Interdependence: How Economic Sanctions Reshaped Global Trade
05:10 – The End of Globalization and the Rise of a Multipolar World
08:30 – SWIFT Alternatives and Cross-Border Settlements in BRICS Local Currencies
11:45 – Glenn Diesen Interview: Can the Global South Escape Dollar Dominance?
14:50 – Digital Sovereignty and Information Warfare in 21st-Century Geopolitics
17:25 – De-Dollarization Reality Check: What the Future of Globalization Holds
🌐 https://thinkbrics.world
🌍 @ThinkBRICS_de | @ThinkBRICS_es | @ThinkBRICS_pt
🎥 @ThinkBRICSChronicles | @BRICSbusiness
📰 Newsletter: https://thinkbrics.substack.com
☕ Support: https://buymeacoffee.com/ThinkBRICS
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NewsTranscript
00:00De-dollarization, India's role in BRICS and information wars.
00:04Our guest today is Radhika Desai.
00:08Welcome back on Think BRICS.
00:10Radhika Desai is a political economist and a YouTube colleague of ours.
00:15Welcome back on Think BRICS.
00:17Great to be back. Thank you so much.
00:19Finally, we meet in Flesham Lones.
00:21Indeed.
00:23So, let me go straight to the point.
00:27We were at the New Delhi Summit.
00:30India and Russia downplayed de-dollarization and the final declaration mentions only about local currencies.
00:38But we found something else.
00:41BRICS seem to be building a system to de-dollarize their economies while still using dollars.
00:49Just a quiet assembly of new trade finance infrastructure covering insurance, credit, settlements, and etc.
00:57So, is this a real strategy and is it more effective?
01:03So, yeah, there's actually many different parts to this question.
01:08So, the first is that there is no doubt that the BRICS countries, the biggest advance they have made is
01:14in the area of creating new payment systems.
01:17So, as you know, Russia has this new system.
01:19India has its own system.
01:20China has union pay.
01:22All these countries are now beginning.
01:24China also has created Enbridge for international payments.
01:26So, there is no doubt that people are getting out of the various payment systems like Western credit cards and
01:34banks that have dominated payments until now.
01:37So, that is very, very good because I think that many of these initiatives are public so that the actual
01:43transaction costs are being lowered, which is great.
01:46You're taking the power away from private capital and often reinventing these payment systems as public services.
01:54So, that's an unmitigated good.
01:57The second thing is that, yes, you are right.
01:59So, you know, there was the Kazan Summit.
02:02At that time, it was very clear that Russia in particular is the country with the biggest stakes in getting
02:09out of the dollar system.
02:11I mean, it has already been thrown out of the dollar system.
02:13So, constructing alternatives to the dollar system, by which I mean not these payment systems, but about the dominance of
02:21the dollar as a currency.
02:23And obviously, to create an alternative to the SWIFT system, out of which Russia has also been thrown out.
02:29So, and as you know, over the last many years, there has been a proliferation of agreements between different countries
02:40to trade in one another's currencies.
02:42So, you know, China and Iran or Russia and China or Russia and India, these sorts of pairs of countries
02:49are trading in one another's currencies.
02:51And this is a good solution, but it has a certain limitation.
02:56Because if you're trading bilaterally, then what it requires is a bilateral balance of trade.
03:05So, because if there isn't balance, that becomes a problem.
03:12Because, say, between Russia and China, the Russians end up accumulating a lot of rupees, which they cannot use.
03:23You know, just today we were listening to Mr. Oreshkin, the president's executive director.
03:29And he was pointing out that, you know, Indian exporters need to get together and take an initiative to make
03:37sure that they can respond to the Russian market.
03:41Because at the moment, India has a lot to buy from Russia, chiefly energy.
03:46And India's energy needs are practically limitless.
03:48But at the same time, when India pays for this oil in rupees, Russia has nothing to buy.
03:54Russia is saying, please step up, do something.
03:57And this becomes a problem.
03:59Whereas, you know, trade, say, between China and Iran is probably not much of a problem.
04:03Because China imports energy from Iran and Iran imports all sorts of consumer goods,
04:10which it needs to supplement its own domestic production at a time when it has been so severely sanctioned as
04:16well by the West.
04:18So, if there is balance, it's good.
04:21If there isn't balance, it isn't good.
04:23Now, a third element is whether there will be actual de-dollarization in international payments.
04:31And that, basically, the dollar system has worked and has created a, not just a bilateral system,
04:38but essentially a multilateral system allowing anybody to pay for anybody else.
04:43And replacing that is going to be very difficult because, essentially, there would have to be agreement on exactly what
04:53kind of currency you need to create, etc.
04:55Now, some people exaggerate the difficulties.
04:58They say that, you know, if there are so many different countries, then inevitably the sheer number of countries will
05:05make agreement difficult.
05:06But my view is that agreement is not made difficult by the number of countries.
05:11Agreement is made difficult when there are fundamental oppositions among those countries.
05:16And today, the fundamental opposition is between, on the one hand, the United States, which wants to maintain the dollar
05:23as the world currency,
05:24and the rest of the world, which would rather that this end, the dollar's dominance end, because it has been
05:31very costly to the world.
05:32It has required huge degrees of financialization.
05:35And it has required, it has created financial crisis on a regular basis, which have often devastated economies.
05:44It systematically undervalues the currencies of other countries and so on.
05:49So, and let me, this has been a long answer, but let me get to the gist of the problem.
05:54So, back in 1944, before the dollar was thrust upon the world,
05:59John Maynard Keynes had gone to Bretton Woods and proposed a kind of system.
06:03And it seems to me that the principles of that system are still relevant today.
06:09We can't recreate that system because times have changed, but the underlying principles are the same.
06:14And the underlying principles are that the currency should be the currency of no single country,
06:19that there should be creditor responsibility within that system so that the surplus countries,
06:26both trade surplus countries and capital surplus countries and creditor countries,
06:33would have, would share responsibility to adjustment with the deficit countries and the borrower countries.
06:43So, when such a co-responsibility exists, then what happens is that the surplus countries and the creditor countries
06:52have an interest in making the deficit countries and the borrower countries more productive,
06:57that they can export.
06:59And the inherent principle of this is balance.
07:02The dollar system relies on imbalances, which is why we have such an imbalanced world, such a chaotic world,
07:08such a volatile world, which leads to crisis and requires financialization and so on.
07:14If we had something like this system of balances, then things would be much better.
07:21And I would say that there is an inherent responsibility, creditor responsibility, built into the bilateral system anyway,
07:28because if Russia wants to buy more things, needs to buy more things from India in order to sell oil
07:35to India,
07:35then it's going to have to pay attention to making Indians capable of producing the sorts of things that the
07:41Russians want to buy.
07:43Or reinvest.
07:44Or reinvest in India.
07:46Exactly.
07:47So, that is a broad answer to that question.
07:49So, I would say that, and one final point, the momentum behind the dollarization has flat, clearly.
07:56And to me, at least in my opinion, based on what my research I have done,
08:01it's because too many rich people, even in the countries today, the BRICS countries and so on,
08:09are investing in the dollar system.
08:11That is where they are hiding their money.
08:13This is where they are putting their money, basically, so that it will retain its value.
08:17And as long as this desire remains, this will be a problem.
08:22Either you will have to overcome it, or, and this is also a possibility,
08:26the dollar system will collapse as a reliable way of keeping your money.
08:31And it may, that may happen in the next financial crisis, which many people say will happen in the next
08:36few months.
08:36So, we'll just have to see.
08:38Thank you for your very deep, detailed explanation.
08:44Now, let me ask one thing.
08:47You have called India under Modi, servile comprador with Washington, and you have said that BRICS is fading summit.
08:59We have witnessed a New Delhi summit.
09:03Is India still a reliable partner?
09:06How do you think?
09:07Or is it has already chosen its side?
09:10Yeah, I think that India is different from the Modi government.
09:14I think that India, the interest of the ordinary people of India is to remain part of the BRICS
09:21and to develop the potential of BRICS to the fullest extent possible.
09:25The difficulty, and you know, the idea of the BRICS came up,
09:29and the first BRICS summits took place before Modi became prime minister.
09:33That was under Manmohan Singh as prime minister.
09:36Manmohan Singh was very enthusiastic about BRICS.
09:40He was enthusiastic about, and he was the one who floated the idea of the New Development Bank.
09:44So, you know, and he's an economist.
09:47So, you know, was an economist.
09:49So, you know, that was a different India.
09:54Since 2014, we've had a prime minister who has prioritized the interest
09:58of a small number of really, really big Indian corporations.
10:02What they want becomes economic policy, and everybody else,
10:08you know, from ordinary workers and peasants to small businesses, medium businesses,
10:13and even some substantial businesses which are not part of the absolute top layer of business,
10:20they can all go to hell in a handbasket.
10:22I mean, that's the Modi government's philosophy.
10:25So, of course, these really, really big business people
10:29are biased towards doing trade with the West.
10:32In particular, they are biased towards the United States.
10:35And the Modi government has pursued this policy.
10:38It has pursued essentially closer relations with the United States.
10:43And that has also gone hand in hand with pursuing good relations with Israel.
10:48So, in this context, as you know, under Modi, India is not enthusiastic about BRICS.
10:56India is not enthusiastic about, you know, expanding, you know,
11:01you know, it says we are not non-aligned but multi-aligned.
11:06So, that means it can justify its close relationships with the United States.
11:11Indian commentators who are in favor of Modi keep saying BRICS is not anti-West.
11:15Well, BRICS doesn't have to be anti-West, but it is an alternative to Western power.
11:20And if BRICS forgets that, then it is forgetting its vocation.
11:25So, that's the first thing.
11:27And the second thing I want to say is that BRICS as a whole,
11:30you know, I've been writing a lot about BRICS.
11:33And I remember I have one article in particular which came out in The Guardian more than 13 years ago
11:39now,
11:40in which I said that BRICS are challenging Western supremacy.
11:44So, this article gets quoted a lot, both by people who agree with what is in there
11:49and people who disagree with what's in there.
11:51But what people forget is that what's written in there is that the BRICS are challenging Western supremacy
11:58to the extent that they are either rejecting or at least radically modifying neoliberalism.
12:05But as you know, in the various BRICS countries,
12:08although China and Russia are no longer neoliberal in the same sense,
12:12I mean, China was never neoliberal.
12:14Russia has been forced away from neoliberalism thanks to sanctions.
12:17And Russia was also pursuing many policies that were already not neoliberal.
12:22But in other countries, in South Africa, essentially neoliberal policies have become part of the post-apartheid constitution.
12:30In Brazil and India, we've had the governments of Bolsonaro and Modi that have gone totally neoliberal.
12:37And by the way, neoliberalism here, it's important to clarify that neoliberalism has never been about free markets and free
12:45trade.
12:45It's always been about giving powerful capitalists a free hand in what they want to do, deregulating, privatizing,
12:56essentially increasing the power of the biggest capitalists.
12:59So in this form, neoliberalism is not going to be in the interests of BRICS.
13:05BRICS have to reject neoliberalism or at least radically modify it.
13:10And so you get kind of these yo-yos.
13:13And right now, Brazil, India, South Africa are less, and India is the worst of them all,
13:20they are less in favor of the larger BRICS spirit than we would wish for.
13:29Let me ask you one more thing that is relevant for today's event.
13:34You run a YouTube channel and you have faced pressure for speaking at Valdai last year.
13:44Two years ago, actually 23, yeah.
13:47Do you think the Global South needs its own alternative media and digital infrastructure,
13:54not state propaganda, but independent platform?
13:58Absolutely.
13:59And I think this is happening already.
14:01I mean, basically what's happening is that because there are all these internet platforms
14:07where you can create your own media, the alternative media has been proliferating.
14:16I am fond of saying that I remember the first alternative media websites coming out already in the 1990s.
14:25Websites like Global Research and even Counterpunch, they began to come out around that time
14:30because, you know, just at the moment when the West was having its so-called unipolar moment,
14:35and I underline so-called because it isn't real, there was never unipolarity, right?
14:40Because just at the moment the Soviet Union collapsed,
14:43what also happened is that the West had already embarked on neoliberalism as their way.
14:49And this has been undermining the West's economy and this is directly responsible for multipolarity.
14:56So, the rise of the BRICS is one element in multipolarity, but the decline of the West is another element
15:02in multipolarity.
15:03So, this hocus-pocus was already going on.
15:07People knew that they were being lied to by the mainstream media,
15:09which had completely bought the neoliberal line and the imperialist line and so on.
15:14So, this is now quite an old phenomenon and things like the internet, these platforms, YouTube, Rumble, etc.,
15:23they are all creating opportunities.
15:25And there is another thing that's going on, which is, of course, that third world countries
15:30and the world majority countries are creating their own media, which are getting more and more assertive.
15:35I mean, you know, even in the 1990s, if you think about international media,
15:40you know, there will be many Western outlets.
15:44But now, you know, there is RT, there is, in China, there is CGTN and various other channels.
15:52And, you know, let me tell a story.
15:56Those outlets you mentioned labeled in the West as propaganda.
16:01Indeed.
16:02But you see, people are not buying this because they are watching this.
16:06People are watching RT, people are watching CGTN.
16:10And so, and because they recognize that the BBC, for example,
16:14which, you know, I grew up regarding the BBC as like totally trustworthy,
16:18you know, gold standard in terms of, you know, best you can get anyway.
16:23But now we know how just how biased the BBC can be.
16:27Same, by the way, I live in Canada.
16:29And in Canada, the CBC is even worse, you know, is as bad if not worse.
16:34So, the Western media generally, Western mainstream media is essentially being seen for what it is.
16:42So, the room for alternatives is great.
16:45And whether they are state-owned, being state-owned does not necessarily mean you are going to be biased.
16:49There have been, BBC had good times.
16:51And I think that RT or CGTN or Telesur can have good times.
16:56So, I think it's really a question of how you report and what is the credibility that you are creating.
17:02So, definitely there has been a big flowering, I would say, of alternative media.
17:09I mean, unfortunately, what happens on YouTube is there is also a lot of trash.
17:13But at the same time, there are also these islands of sanity where people are actually producing quality content
17:20and other people, the audience is responding by watching it, listening to it and so on.
17:25So, do you think as a media, as a content creators, we should push people towards critical thinking first?
17:36Absolutely.
17:37To teach, to show how, what is this?
17:41To choose information, how to choose information, how to think before you make decision or you make your opinion on
17:50something.
17:51I mean, at one level, I have to say, you know, I teach in a university.
17:55And as you know, universities, like every other institution, has been subject to fads.
18:00So, I regard at one level teaching critical thinking as a bit of a fad.
18:06We are naturally critical thinkers, ordinary people.
18:09So, really, what the media like us who are questioning the mainstream narratives, what we have to do is simply
18:15and calmly present the counter-evidence,
18:18present new ways of thinking about the evidence, counter-arguments.
18:22So, facts and arguments that have not been aired before need to be aired.
18:27Once we do that, we don't have to teach people to think critically.
18:31As I say, if they don't already think critically, we would have a lot of problems.
18:34I mean, look, humanity has always thought critically, which is why we have advanced as much as we have.
18:40That is to say, we realize that there may be something wrong with the stories that we've been told.
18:45So, we are always on the lookout for alternatives.
18:50And so, just presenting the facts and the counter-arguments and the counter-facts is all we have to do.
18:57Thank you, Radhika. Thank you very much.
18:59It was a very nice conversation.
19:01Subscribe to ThinkBrigs. Subscribe to Radhika's pages.
19:06All the links will be in the description. Thank you.
19:09Thank you. Thank you so much.