Indonesia pushes for looser trade rules at BRICS and opens talks on a preferential deal with Brazil

Indonesia used the trade ministers' meeting of BRICS, the emerging-economy group founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, to press for trade rules it describes as fairer and more transparent and for reform of the multilateral system. Trade Minister Budi Santoso told the meeting in Jaipur, held under India's chairmanship, that a rules-based system matters most for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries, which lose disproportionately when access depends on bilateral bargaining power.

Alongside the main meeting, Indonesia and Brazil began discussing a preferential trade agreement as a first step toward wider terms with Mercosur, the South American customs union of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. A preferential agreement cuts tariffs on a defined list of goods rather than opening markets broadly, which makes it the standard first step when two economies want closer commercial ties without a full negotiation.

The pattern is consistent across the Global South this year. Countries facing higher tariffs into the United States are building partial, overlapping arrangements with each other. None of these deals individually shifts trade flows much. Their significance is cumulative, because each one adds a channel that does not run through Washington or Brussels and does not require either capital's approval.

BRICS itself has kept a common currency off its near-term agenda, focusing instead on payment infrastructure that settles trade in members' own currencies. That is the more consequential project, and the less discussed one.