The G20, or Group of Twenty, once a respected beacon of unity between developed and developing countries, is fracturing at its poles. Its wealthiest members are becoming more selective in their engagements, prioritizing concerns around economic stagnation and security, pouring more energy into NATO and the G7. Simultaneously, its Global South countries are increasingly expressing anti-Western sentiments and gravitating toward China’s purportedly more sympathetic embrace. However, rather than aligning themselves exclusively with China, Global South countries are focusing more on agency in their own economic development. This reflects a fragmenting world order where economic power is increasingly distributed more evenly among nations than at any previous point in recent history. The G20’s drift into obsolescence occurs in the greater context of shifting geostrategic alliances. As part of this shift, BRICS—a bloc of the most powerful emerging economies including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—is gaining greater control over the economic development narrative in the Global South.
The most glaring example of increased western isolationism is Donald Trump’s plan to institute large-scale protectionist tariffs and his blatant withdrawal of US support for multilateralism and foreign investment. He plans to disassemble the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), withdraw from the World Health Organization, and has proposed cutting foreign aid by a third. These policies are especially harmful because, as of 2024, the United States was responsible for 40 percent of all global humanitarian aid and almost half of all global food aid. By dismantling thousands of programs worldwide, Trump’s drastic measures will create significant revenue cuts for many developing countries, severely impacting health, education, and infrastructure projects.
While Trump’s measures may sound extreme, the European Union, the world’s largest official aid provider, is heading in a similar direction. EU members’ refocusing on their own neighborhood was exemplified by the recent G20 summit’s inability to agree on a joint communique. The primary points of contention was Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Western Europe’s underwhelming domestic economic growth, with European leaders eager to direct funds toward economic revival and the ongoing war. In line with this, the European Commission plans to mobilize up to €800 billion under the ‘ReArm Europe’ Plan to fund massive expansions of member states’ defense spending. This funding will come from the EU’s existing budget, suggesting that defense spending will compete with other budget items. In parallel, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships is majorly downsizing, consolidating 100 of its global offices into only 18 hubs. The agency attributes this decision to budget constraints and shifting geopolitical priorities driven especially by the Green Deal, migration, and security. Although Europe, unlike the United States, reiterated its commitment to a future shaped by multilateralism at a recent G20 summit, they are primarily fixated on reviving their feeble military and underwhelming economy. Consequently, the Eurozone has not only failed to counteract but has also begun to mirror US neglect of G20 responsibilities to developing countries.
Furthermore, international reactions to the Ukraine war expose how such a major conflict in Europe, which in the past would have been met with near-global mobilization in support of Ukraine, no longer inspires such coordinated action. Recently, seventeen African countries abstained from a UN vote to mobilize members in support of Ukraine, expressing frustration over the EU’s failure to provide comparable support in African wars. The age when unified geopolitical blocs rallied countries for international collaboration is fading as the G20 fragments. European G20 countries are essentially left to resolve the conflict on their own, which will likely enable them to further withdraw from multilateral responsibilities.
In an increasingly multipolar world, developing countries are looking to other world powers for strategic alliances, which is where BRICS comes in. Since the bloc’s inception, it has expanded into BRICS+, with each addition bringing strategic political and economic benefits that strengthen the coalition’s power. Specifically, the inclusion of mineral-rich African nations, energy-exporting Gulf states, and emerging South American and Southeast Asian economies provide control over critical trade chokepoints, essential minerals, and the future-driven industries of renewable energy and electric vehicles. BRICS+ has attained tangible power, collectively amounting to 40 percent of the world’s GDP and competing meaningfully in international trade.
Although Western powers’ increasing focus on internal matters at times overshadows their development aid goals, this is just one part of a decades-long concern. The G20’s inception set the stage for a new vision of global order meant to integrate developing countries through trade and multilateral projects. However, it is important to note that these aid efforts have not necessarily received stellar reviews from recipients. A recurring concern has been the conditions often attached to investments intended to promote free-market economic policies, notably in the form of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which are loans that demand deregulation and cuts to public spending in the receiving country. Multilateral lending institutions have also been criticized for facilitating debt-traps— where high-interest loans with short repayment timelines encourage further cuts to public spending. The development aid associated with G20 efforts has served as a tool for diplomacy, but it is also sometimes perceived as a structure of dependence that gives lending countries economic and political influence over borrowing ones. In recent years, many receiving countries have adopted the opinion that development aid creates an uneven power dynamic in which reluctant governments are pressured to accept less-than-ideal borrowing terms.
In parallel to this growing discontent, BRICS has set up its own multilateral lending institution in the form of the New Development Bank. The NDB claims to, unlike the IMF and World Bank, prioritize countries’ agency over their economic development by attaching fewer policy conditions. They claim to offer more flexible lending terms and are increasingly lending in local currencies. The NDB is still too young to effectively compete against established multilaterals, but its current trajectory seems optimistic. Even greater in scope and more established, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has advanced 80 percent of the lending of the World Bank this decade. Through this project, Chinese banks drive infrastructure investments in low income countries that struggle to find alternative sources of funding and bail many out from existing debt-traps. It is important to note, however, that these projects come with their own challenges like debt crises, labor violations, corruption, and environmental hazards. Regardless, these kinds of lending institutions rhetorically position themselves as less interventionist and more sympathetic to receiving countries’ circumstances, making them increasingly attractive alternatives to Western investment.
Beyond multilateral lending, dollar dominance is another significant force contributing to the Global South’s skepticism of Western development efforts. The dollar’s role as a reserve currency, wherein about 85 percent of all foreign-exchange transactions are performed in dollars, gives the United States enormous power to impose its will through sanctions. The US has historically made extensive use of this power, having imposed sanctions on about ⅓ of all countries and 60 percent of low income countries. BRICS+ is actively pursuing de-dollarization efforts by developing a block-chain technology that would facilitate cross-border trade in local currencies. This shift would not only circumvent the economic weight of US sanctions but also make developing economies less vulnerable to dollar volatility. China, especially, is also reducing dependence on the dollar by providing massive credit swaps in yuan to countries hoping to clear debt to the World Bank and IMF, with Argentina as the most recent beneficiary. Through de-dollarization, BRICS is working to reduce the need for dollar-based reserves while strengthening its member countries’ financial independence and influence. Yet while these efforts demonstrate non-G7 countries shifting away from Western dominance, this trend does not necessarily indicate full-scale commitment to China or BRICS. Although the G20 is virtually splitting up, BRICS is arguably just a facilitator for this separation and does not necessarily inspire absolute devotion from non-G7 members.
The idea that developing countries are moving from one sphere of influence to another does not tell the complete story. Many, including original BRICS members India, Brazil, and South Africa, are playing both sides through membership in both groups. Considering that China dominates the BRICS+ bloc and competes economically with the West, balancing both loyalties will likely pose a challenge as BRICS+ continues to evolve. In fact, membership in both the G20 and BRICS+ illustrates developing countries’ increasing self-interest when it comes to determining their economic and political futures.
Another complication to the view of BRICS+ and the G7 as a binary global order is the fact that neither is anywhere near as powerful as Russia and the United States were during the Cold War, which is the most recent example of global bipolarity. Notably, middle income countries like Indonesia and Brazil have gained significant power since then, helping to level the competitive playing field. Internal tensions between countries in the BRICS+ bloc further prove this, challenging a sinocentric view of the bloc as countries advance their own interests beyond loyalty to a single power. These trends show how instead of returning to a bipolar world, we are ascending into a multipolar one, where strategic alliances occur on more fragmented levels to serve each country’s case-by-case interests. More specifically, the best way to describe our emerging world order is “uneven multipolarity”, where some countries have more influence over global affairs than others, but no single country or bloc holds the sway that few world powers did in the past.
Increasing US and Eurozone isolationism, although stemming from different causes, is disengaging the Western bloc from the inclusive multilateral collaboration necessary for the G20’s success. In parallel, China is utilizing the BRICS+ bloc as an instrument to circumvent engagement with the West and capitalize on decades of mounting tensions in relations between the West and the Global South. As nations become increasingly concerned with serving their own interests, developing countries are working to reduce dependence on the West without becoming overly reliant on China. If the West wants to maintain its seat at the geopolitical table, it needs to acknowledge the massive potential that comes with the natural resources, demographic divergence, and strategic locations of developing countries. In recognizing this, it needs to abandon its past paternalistic approach and give more agency to the countries it partners with to implement development programs. A revival of the G20 should depart from past forms of diplomacy and embrace a multipolar future, making the union more resistant to shifting global affairs and creating lasting prosperity for those involved.