Lord Jim O’Neill, the economist who coined the BRIC acronym, argues that recent U.S. policy has inadvertently strengthened the bloc’s relevance. In an interview, he stated that former President Donald Trump’s tariff threats have legitimized BRICS as a political club and spurred members to consider financial alternatives to the dollar. However, O’Neill expressed significant skepticism about the near-term viability of a common BRICS currency, citing China’s likely unwillingness to cede central bank control.
The economist who created the BRIC term 25 years ago has raised doubts about the bloc’s capacity to restructure the global economic order. Jim O’Neill recently discussed the group’s economic prospects and the reality of de-dollarization.
O’Neill argued that Donald Trump has uniquely made BRICS politically relevant through tariff warnings. “It effectively legitimizes the BRICS political club, and even more importantly, it of course makes the leaders of these countries think much more seriously about indeed creating an alternative financial state of affairs where they’re not so dependent economically with the US,” he stated.
He suggested Trump acted as a kind of “secret agent” for the bloc by drawing attention to it. This focus has pushed member states to take financial alternatives more seriously.
On de-dollarization, O’Neill pointed to the India-China trade relationship as a critical variable. He described Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Beijing as “quite a large development.”
“If India and China were to do significant free trade things together and it involved other important Asian countries and beyond, the boost to their economies and the boost to global trade would be absolutely ginormous,” O’Neill said. The rest of the world, representing 75% of global GDP, is increasingly trading internally.
Regarding a common BRICS currency, O’Neill was highly skeptical. He questioned China’s willingness to surrender monetary sovereignty for a shared currency framework.
“Are the Chinese going to give up the independence of the People’s Bank of China in order to have a currency that’s a bit like a sort of BRICS version of the euro? Very very very unlikely and not in my lifetime,” he stated. The economist views BRICS expansion as largely symbolic, providing China a platform to champion the Global South.
