Brazil’s Vote Puts BRICS Cohesion Under Pressure

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s victory on Oct. 25, 2026, gave the BRICS alliance political reassurance as United States President Donald Trump seeks to reassert U.S. power and has described the bloc as a threat to U.S. interests. Lula won an unprecedented fourth term. The contest put Brazil’s role in the alliance on the table: his rival, Flavio Bolsonaro, had links to Trump and called for reconsidering Brazil’s membership.

Power at the ballot box—and beyond

Esmat Zaidan, professor of public policy at Qatar's Hamad Bin Khalifa University, told Al Jazeera: "The victory of Lula is important to BRICS' political continuation in the current climate as it seeks to increase the bloc's role and make it stronger in global governance." Lula helped found BRICS nearly two decades ago and has sought to expand its international role.

A change in Brazil’s leadership could have had consequences beyond the country’s borders. Analysts said a Bolsonaro victory could have threatened Brazil’s commitment to the bloc. Zaidan said closer alignment with Washington under Bolsonaro could have weakened BRICS’ political cohesion and slowed cooperation on trade and financial reform.

Imran Khalid, a geostrategic analyst and senior fellow at Foreign Policy in Focus, said Bolsonaro had reportedly promised the U.S. Trade Representative that Brazil’s Pix instant payment system would stay out of non-Western payment schemes. The United States, Khalid said, seeks to protect the dollar’s global dominance. The dispute reaches from government choices down into the payment systems used to move money; the article offers no account of how those choices affect ordinary Brazilians directly.

Consensus can become a choke point

"BRICS makes decisions by consensus, so one unwilling founding member can slow everything down from the inside. That was the real risk, more than Brazil walking out," Khalid said. Lula’s victory may make a shared agenda easier to pursue, but it doesn’t remove the differences among member governments.

Guy Burton, a geopolitical and policy analyst, said BRICS represents a large share of the world’s population, economy and trade but "has never really acted as a political unit. Its members are too different." He pointed to Iran and the United Arab Emirates being in the bloc despite being on opposite sides of the current war, illustrating the limits of cohesion.

Zaidan said emerging economies’ concerns about decisions made in Washington include trade, tariffs and international economic relations. "For these countries, the issue is not necessarily opposition to the US. It is about having greater room to make independent decisions and avoiding excessive dependence on any single global power," he said. Khalid said China and Russia supported Lula; Xi Jinping backed him against outside interference, while the Kremlin praised his work for BRICS.

"Most of these countries do not want a fight with the United States; they want the freedom to say no to Washington without being punished for it," Khalid said. "A strong Brazil inside BRICS helps protect that freedom." The account centers on state leaders, trade and financial institutions. It describes no grassroots organizing, mutual aid or community-led response.

The dollar’s grip, one transaction at a time

BRICS members have sought to promote trade in local currencies rather than the U.S. dollar. Zaidan said Lula’s victory could provide a political foundation for that effort because Brazil is one of the bloc’s largest trading economies. Khalid said local-currency trade had become more viable after BRICS dropped the idea of a common currency at its most recent summit in New Delhi in September 2026.

"If the [BRICS' New Development Bank] moves towards its goal of 30 percent of lending in member currencies, and Brazil and China settle more trade in reais and yuan as they agreed in 2023, reliance on the dollar falls step by step, without an open confrontation," Khalid said. Zaidan said governments also need reliable payment infrastructure, sufficient currency liquidity, suitable financial regulations and businesses willing to use the arrangements.

Burton said the dollar still dominates foreign-exchange transactions and a tipping point for another currency might be a decade or more away. Zaidan described any reduction in dollar dependence as "gradual, uneven and driven as much by economic feasibility as by geopolitical ambition." The election has changed the political conditions for this state-led effort, not settled its outcome.

Burton said the Trump administration’s effort to retain superpower status while retreating to a more protectionist America-first role created another uncertainty. "Developments such as Lula's re-election will only sharpen the pressures already building in the Global North," he said.