The Brics group of emerging-market powers — the acronym stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — has gone from a slogan dreamed up at an investment bank two decades ago to a real-world club that controls a multilateral lender.Indonesia has become the newest member of the Brics group of developing nations, in a move that could further bolster the Global South as US President-elect Donald Trump’s trade policies pose risks to world economy.Comprising 10 member states, Brics pairs several major energy producers with some of the biggest consumers among developing countries.The bloc expanded in early 2024 to include Iran, the UAE, Ethiopia and Egypt. Saudi Arabia was also announced as a new member, though the kingdom has yet to take a final decision on whether to join.In November 2024, Turkiye said it had been granted “partner-country status”, short of its expectation that it would gain full admission.A number of other countries have also been offered such second-tier membership, which would come without voting rights.Nations still seeking to join include Malaysia and Thailand.The expansion push has been driven largely by China, now the world’s pre-eminent industrial power, which is trying to boost its global clout. South Africa and Russia have backed the expansion.India was initially hesitant because it was concerned that a bigger Brics would transform the group into a mouthpiece for China, while Brazil was worried about alienating the West — although both eventually agreed to an enlargement.For new members, Brics offers the potential for easier access to financing from its wealthier members, and a political venue independent of Washington’s influence.The addition of major fossil-fuel producers may give the bloc more scope to challenge the dollar’s dominance in oil and gas trading by switching to other currencies, a concept referred to as dedollarisation.That prospect has drawn the ire of Trump, who said any nation that abandons the greenback can forget about selling anything to America. The biggest achievements of the group have been financial. The countries agreed to pool $100bn of foreign-currency reserves, which they can lend to each other during emergencies. That liquidity facility became operational in 2016.They also founded the New Development Bank, a World Bank-inspired lending institution that has approved almost $33bn of loans since it began operations in 2015, mainly for water, transport and other infrastructure projects.By comparison, the World Bank committed $117.5bn to partner countries in fiscal 2024. For most of the time Brics has existed, China’s gross domestic product has been more than twice the combined economic output of the four other members prior to the expansion.In theory, that should give it the most sway. In practice, India, which recently surpassed China in population, has been a counterweight. There’s still interest in emerging markets. But Brics is largely irrelevant as an investment theme today due to geopolitical changes and the members’ different economic trajectories.US-led sanctions have put Russia off limits for most foreign investors, and some sectors in China — especially technology companies — have also been sanctioned or face potential investment bans. China also is a maturing economy, increasingly separated from other emerging markets and facing a structural slowdown. Brazil’s economy slowed markedly following the end of a global commodity boom about a decade ago.India is still a growth story that investment banks compare with China 10 or 15 years ago, though it’s unclear if it can follow China’s manufacturing-led model.In a wider sense, Brics membership is also a way of signalling increasing frustration with the US-led international order and key institutions that remain firmly in the control of Western powers, like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.