Picture: Rodger Bosch / AFP /Taken on on June 01, 2023 – From left, Ma ZHaoxu, deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of China, Mauro Viera, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Naledi Pandor, South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, and Subrahmanyam Jaishanker, Minister of Foreign Affairs of India at the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Foreign Ministers Meeting in Cape Town. The five-nations bloc including have met in Cape Town for talks came ahead of a heads of state summit in August, which is proving problematic for the host, South Africa, due to the possible attendance of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the target of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant, stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
By Sputnik Staff
The BRICS foreign ministers met in South Africa on June 2 to discuss the group’s enlargement and a common currency. The organisation, which currently comprises five members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), is becoming the focus of interest for some twenty countries wishing to join.
The BRICS countries are steadily expanding their positions and dethroning the primacy of the US dollar, General Dominique Delawarde, a former senior officer in the French army, told Sputnik Africa.
As the organisation expands, it would be economically more powerful than the G7, suggests Delawarde.
“If the BRICS – and I think they will – welcome new candidates as full members, say one or two a year. Little by little, […] their GDP will very quickly outstrip that of the G7. The G7 will become marginal. The G7 represents 30 percent of world GDP. This means that 70 percent of the world’s GDP is not in the G7 countries. And the powers that be are shifting more and more,” he said.
In addition to their economic strength, the BRICS will promote the transition to multipolarity, and Western predominance will crumble, he noted. Moreover, the general said, African countries are banking on co-operation with the organisation and with Moscow, agreeing to take part in the Russia-Africa Summit in July:
“Russia, and multipolarity in particular, is winning quietly, serenely,” he continued.
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Towards a plummeting dollar
The former senior French officer outlined that a shift in global politics is in motion, adding that the process is “incontestable”, even if it may take a few years to take place.
“The dynamics of geopolitical change in the world are clear. In particular, it is “in favour of the BRICS, of the multipolar world, and this world, whether the American neocons like it or not, is going to happen and is happening. And the dollar is going to lose its power,” concluded Mr Delawarde.
According to him, “the American dollar will become a worthless Monopoly ticket in the game of Monopoly”.
“And the day the Americans lose the supremacy of the reserve currency that the dollar currently is, the day a majority of states refuse to adopt the dollar in trade, American power will be wiped out and ended by a huge crisis,” he declared, citing several American experts such as MacGregor, Mearsheimer and Hersh, who expressed the same ideas.
Finally, it’s not just the United States but the West in general that’s at stake, the ex-officer outlined, referring to Western countries’ refusal to buy cheap Russian hydrocarbons.
“The global West’s competitor is indeed the BRICS or the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, these organisations led by Russia and China. We’re in the process of making them more competitive ourselves,” he said. “And we’ve shot ourselves in the head, yes. But it’s going to take some time to realise that.”
This article was first published in Sputnik
