BRICS expands with 9 new partner countries. Now it's half of world population, 41% of global economy

brics continues to grow in influence and is becoming one of the most important organizations on Earth brics is a global South Le Forum that was founded in 2009 by Brazil Russia India and China and then in 2010 South Africa joined since then bricks has continued to grow in 2024 four new countries were officially admitted as full members which include Egypt Ethiopia Iran and the United Arab Emirates and then at a historic Summit in the Russian city of Kazan in October 2024 13 more countries were officially invited to become partner countries of bricks in December Russia

confirmed that nine of those 13 countries have accepted the invitation and on the 1st of January 2025 the following nine countries will now become partner countries of bricks bellarus Bolivia Cuba Indonesia Kazakhstan Malaysia Thailand Uganda and usbekistan and then the other four countries that were invited but have not yet accepted the invitation include Algeria Nigeria turkey and Vietnam and Russia made it clear that those four countries could potentially join as well they did not reject the invitation but as of the end of 2024 they had not given an official response so I made a map

that shows the composition of bricks as of the 1st of January 2025 and now there are nine full members of bricks there are nine partner countries there are four countries that have been invited to be partners but have not yet officially given an answer there is one country that was invited to be a full member that has not given an answer that's Saudi Arabia and there was one country that was invited to be a full member but rejected the offer which is Argentina when it was originally invited to join Argentina's Center left government of President

Alberto Fernandez said that he was going to join but then before officially Argentina was accepted the very right-wing Pro us leader Javier M came to power and he rejected the offer before Argentina officially joined in January of 2024 so what's not worthy as you can see on the map is that bricks is very powerful in Asia and it's growing as well in Africa there are four countries that are now part of bricks officially and there are two more that may be part of bricks in the near future Algeria and Nigeria and Nigeria is the most

populous country in Africa Algeria has the largest land mass Ina Africa over in Latin America there are now three countries in bricks including the largest and most populous country in the region Brazil with the biggest economy also including Bolivia and Cuba of course Cuba is a country that has been suffocated for over 60 years by an illegal us blockade the US has tried to destroy the Cuban economy ever since the revolution in 1959 but Cuba has always been very important in global South movements fighting against colonialism and imperialism Cuba was part of the non-aligned movement

during the first Cold War and today Cuba has still played a very important role in encouraging Unity across the global South this means that brics now has 18 members and partners and together they represent more than 41% of the global economy when GDP is measured at purchasing power parody and they represent roughly half half of the entire world population as I'll show later in this analysis today bricks also represents more than onethird of global oil production and Bricks countries are very important in global commodity markets making up some of the largest producers of crucial minerals

like nickel and copper and iron ore and Bricks countries produce huge amounts of food especially cereals and meat which are needed to feed the world population so it's not just that they represent more than two fths of the global economy and roughly half the world population they also are commodity powerhouses Agriculture powerhouses and energy powerhouses so bricks cannot be ignored the global South is coming together trying to form some kind of organization for economic cooperation as the global South grows in economic influence so what does brics partner status mean it means that a country is

now part of brics and is on the path to becoming a full member in the near future this is similar to the process that is used by the Shanghai cooperation organization and many members of bricks are already members of the SEO the SEO is more of a security oriented organization whereas brics is more focused on economic cooperation and especially dollarization creating alternatives to the us-dominated Global Financial system which is based on the US dollar at the 2024 Summit in Russia brics officially endorsed a comprehensive plan to transform the international monetary and financial system I published

a video in an article summarizing that report explaining brics's proposal I will link to that in the description below but the point is is that brics is creating alternative Financial mechanisms to dollarize so countries that are part of brics can trade together using their local currency so they don't need the dollar and they're also trying to create new platforms for investments in other currencies to create re Reserve assets so central banks in brics countries can hold other assets not just US Dollars and US Treasury Securities they're also trying to create an alternative to the Swift

interbank messaging system which the US has weaponized in order to impose sanctions on countries cutting out Banks and countries like Russia so brics is going to create alternative mechanisms so countries can process payments between Banks and brics is also talking about creating platforms to settle trade imbalances in gold and commodities including wheat and oil by creating exchanges that are located in bricks countries not the West so if you want to get more information about that I have it linked to in the description below but now I want to go through some of the statistics showing

how brics is becoming more and more influential in the world so now that brics has nine full members and nine partner countries together it represents roughly half of the global population there are a little over 8 billion people in the world and Bricks now has 4 billion people among its members and partners so if you look at a list of the 20 most populous countries on Earth nine of those 20 are now part of bricks of course India and China are founding members of bricks India is the most populous China is the second most populous

together they have more than 2.8 billion people Indonesia which is now a bricks partner is the fourth most populous country after the United States so when you combine India China and Indonesia they together represent more than 3 billion people and then add in Brazil which is the seventh most populous country then Russia is the ninth most populous country and Ethiopia is the 10th most populous country so six of the 10 most populous countries are now part of bricks and then you also have other very big countries like Egypt Iran and Thailand which are also in

the top 20 and are now part of bricks what about the global economy well the original five bricks members together represent more than 30% of world GDP measured at purchasing power parity which accounts for what you can actually buy with the currency so not just looking at market exchange rates which especially at a time right now when the US dollar is very overvalued it makes the US economy look bigger than it actually is is and it makes other countries where their currencies have fallen against the dollar look smaller than they actually are so when you

measure at purchasing power parody you can see that the bricks five the original members now have a larger share of the world economy than the G7 which is the group of seven colonialist countries that colonized most of the world that is North America Europe and Japan if you look at the nine countries that are now full members of bricks together their GDP represents more than 36% of the entire world China is the world's biggest economy at 19% of global GDP India is 8% of world GDP and other very big economies in bricks include Russia at

over 3.5% Brazil at over 2.4% then we can add in the new nine bricks partner countries and although their economies are smaller Indonesia is still a major economy in the world Indonesia represents roughly 2.4% of global GDP and when you add together the brics nine Members Plus the brics nine partner countries together they represent just over 41% of global GDP however with all of that said I should point out that GDP is not the best measurement what is GDP gross domestic product it's a measurement of the value of all of the goods and services produced

in a country in one year however if you look at a country like the United States its economy looks like it's very strong very powerful but when you break down the composition of GDP you can see that in reality manufacturing the actual production of tangible products that people need for our lives is just over 10% of US GDP however 21% of US GDP comes from the fire sector that is finance insurance and real estate so when Banks and Realtors and Brokers charge more fees GDP goes up or 133% of US GDP consists of professional and

business services including things like white colar workers such as lawyers and managers so when us attorneys charge more fees US GDP goes up another example is Healthcare Healthcare represents 18% of US GDP however the US Health System is notoriously bad it has some of the worst public health results in the industrialized world and yet the US spends roughly twice as much on healthc care as a percentage of GDP compared to the other advanced economies in the oecd moreover 8% of US GDP consists of something called imputed rents to owner occupied housing what does that mean

it means this is how much an owner of a house in the US would hypothetically pay to rent the house that they own and live in so in other words 8% of US GDP is imaginary it doesn't exist this is an example of how GDP can be sometimes useful but it can also obscure and at the end of the day it doesn't actually show how productive your economy is if it can actually manufacture things that make people's lives better and when you break down the sectors that make up GDP you can see that a huge

part of US GDP is overhead it's corporate bureaucracy it's fees and red tape and insurance and you cannot eat that part of GDP so a more useful measurement can be food production let's look at the share of bricks countries in global food production I'm looking here at data from the UN food and agriculture organization and it shows the main primary crops produced in the world which together represent over half of all Global agricultural production in order of size these are sugar cane maiz or corn rice wheat palm oil and potatoes so let's look one by

one when it comes to Global Production of sugar which is unfortunately the number one crop produced on Earth but of course sugars in almost everything these days Brazil India and China together represent nearly 2/3 of global sugar production and then look at Ma or corn together China and Brazil represent nearly onethird of global corn production the US is the biggest producer and then look at Rice China and India together make up more than half of global rice production look at wheat China India and Russia make up more than 40% of global wheat production look at

palm oil Indonesia Malaysia and Thailand together make up more than 80% of global palm oil production and Indonesia Malaysia Thailand are now partner countries of bricks and then look at potatoes China and India make up nearly 40% of global potato production so now let's look at Global meat production chicken pork and beef make up 88% of global meat production chicken is 34% pork is 34% and beef is 20% so in terms of chicken production the USA is the biggest producer but the second and third biggest producers are China and Brazil together China and Brazil make

up roughly 20% of global chicken production let's look at Pork China is by far the world's largest producer of pig meat representing more than 40% of global pork production then there is cattle meat or beef the US is the world's biggest beef producer but Brazil and China are the second and third biggest producers of beef and together they make up around 20% of world beef production what about eggs or as the UN food and agriculture organization puts it hen eggs you know from from chickens well there's no competition China is by far the world's biggest

producer of hen eggs representing 34% of the entire world's production India makes up 8% the USA is 8% Indonesia is 6% Brazil is 4% and Russia makes up 3% so bricks countries make up more than half of the world's production of eggs what about Seafood well when it comes to Global Fish Production once again China is off the charts the UN FAO divides Seafood between capture production and aquaculture production China alone makes up more than half of global aquaculture production and then India and Indonesia are the second and third largest so together they represent More

than 70% of global aquaculture production and then China is also the world's single largest source of capture production of seafood representing roughly 15% followed by Indonesia in second place so together China and Indonesia make up more than 20% of global capture production of seafood and finally let's look at Global Production of vegetable oils I already talked about palm oil how Indonesia Malaysia and Thailand which are now all bricks partner countries represent nearly 90% of Global Production of palm oil there's also soy oil China and Brazil are the first and third largest producers respectively making up

around half of global soybean oil production China is the third largest producer of canola oil and Russia is the second biggest producer of sunflower oil so what's the message that I'm really trying to hit home here that yes bricks makes up now more than 41% of world GDP but when you look at sector by sector bricks is even more important because it makes food for the entire world it is the Bread Basket of the world and then we can also look at energy and here we can see how bricks once again punches above its weight

as a very important organization in terms of energy production if you look at a list of the top 10 oil producers on Earth half of those countries are in bricks the third largest producer of oil Russia the fourth largest producer of oil is China the seventh largest producer is Iran the eighth biggest producer is the UAE and the ninth biggest is Brazil those five countries are all full members of Bricks now then if you look at Global Production of natural gas once again you can see how powerful brics is the second biggest producer of gas

is Russia the third biggest is Iran the eighth biggest producer is China the 10th biggest is the UAE the 11th biggest is Indonesia and the 15th biggest is Malaysia which is now a bricks partner state of course climate change is a global problem especially that countries in the global South have been facing so let's look at green energy and here there's just no comparison China is off the charts when it comes to investment in and installation of renewable energy China has installed more solar and wind power capacity than the rest of the world combined and

China alone represents more than 80% of global investment in clean energy manufacturing so once again I mean there's just no comparison China is by Leaps and Bounds the global leader in renewable energy in Green Technology and the US and Europe are putting heavy tariffs on China because their companies cannot compete with Chinese companies finally let's look at brics's position when it comes to Global Production of critical minerals which are needed for renewable Technologies and Manufacturing if you look at the list of the world's top iron ore producers you can see that most of them are

in bricks the second biggest producer of iron ore on Earth is Brazil the third biggest is China the fourth biggest is India the fifth biggest is Russia the eighth biggest is South Africa the ninth biggest is Kazakhstan which is now a bricks partner and the 10th biggest is Iran which is now a full member of bricks and then if you look at Global Production of copper you can see that there are some Heavy Hitters in bricks China is the world's third biggest producer of copper Russia is the world's seventh biggest and Indonesia is the ninth

biggest and we can see the same pattern if you look at Global Production of nickel which is a very important mineral for the green transition for renewable energy Indonesia is off the charts no country comes even close to Indonesia when it comes to Global production of nickel the third biggest producer is Russia the seventh biggest producer is China the eighth biggest producer is Brazil and the ninth biggest producer is Cuba which is now a bricks partner country those are some of the most important statistics showing how bricks is very important in the world the West

would like you to believe that this is an unimportant organization and because there are so many political differences that it won't make a difference in the world but first and foremost bricks is an economic organization a forum of global South countries developing economies that are coming together to try to create New Alternatives they are challenging the dominance of Western economies and especially they are seeking alternatives to the US dollar they are trying to dollarize to trade with each other in their local currencies seeking investments in other currencies seeking assets that they can hold in the

reserves of their Central Bank so they're not entirely dependent on holding US Treasury Securities US Government debt which also helps to fund the US government as it wages Wars around the world as it imposes sanctions on onethird of countries on Earth as I mentioned earlier in 2024 brics held a historic Summit in Russia in which they endorsed a blueprint that calls for transforming the international monetary and financial system I have a separate video and article that I published summarizing brics's plan I have linked to that in the description below if you like the reporting that

we do here at geopolitical economy report please like And subscribe please share this I am Ben Norton the editor-in-chief of geopolitical economy report this is one of the key issues that we follow very closely so be sure to come back soon to learn more about bricks and the increasingly multi bolar world that we live in I want to thank everyone for joining me today I will see you all next time