Mint Explainer: Why Argentina decided against joining BRICS
Mint examines the reasons and implications. The BRICs grouping, during its summit in South Africa in August, invited six countries including Argentina to join it as permanent members, effective 1 January, 2024. On Saturday, though, Argentina’s newly elected government announced it would not be taking up on the offer.
President Javier Milei said the decision to join BRICS had been taken by the previous administration and the new dispensation was reviewing such policies. Argentina’s new president is at the centre of this issue. Milei, a 53-year-old economist and television pundit, won the country’s presidential election in November on the back of promises to revive the nation’s economy and overhaul its government.
Milei is considered by many to be a radical and right-wing populist. During his presidential campaign, Milei was sharply critical of China and, according to reports, of BRICS as well. Milei argued that “our geopolitical alignment is with the United States and Israel.
We are not going to ally with communists." At the time of the BRICS summit in August, many speculated that China and Russia were pushing for an expansion of BRICS to turn it into an anti-Western bloc. Reports cited concerns from New Delhi that Beijing and Moscow were intent on adding countries that shared their confrontational attitude to the West. At the summit in August, India publicly welcomed the expansion of BRICS.
It has, however, insisted on laying down concrete rules and procedures to regulate the entry of new members into the grouping. The development may be unwelcome for BRICS, which many believe hasn’t delivered on its potential. It was initially conceptualised as a grouping of five major developing economies that would grow rapidly and
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