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

Jakarta is negotiating market access through the emerging-economy bloc and separately weighing an agreement that would be its first step toward the South American customs union.

- Published: 2026-08-09T06:07:59.701Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/2026-08-09/indonesia-pushes-for-looser-trade-rules-at-brics-and-opens-t
- Publisher: Polylog (Global desk)
- Section: world
- Sources: [Antara](https://en.antaranews.com/news/426196/indonesia-backs-fairer-global-trade-rules-at-brics-meeting), [Antara](https://en.antaranews.com/news/426189/indonesia-brazil-consider-establishing-indonesia-mecosur-pta), [Antara](https://en.antaranews.com/news/426113/indonesia-urges-rules-based-trade-to-boost-msmes-at-brics-meeting)

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](https://en.antaranews.com/news/426196/indonesia-backs-fairer-global-trade-rules-at-brics-meeting) 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](https://en.antaranews.com/news/426113/indonesia-urges-rules-based-trade-to-boost-msmes-at-brics-meeting), which lose disproportionately when access depends on bilateral bargaining power.

Alongside the main meeting, Indonesia and Brazil [began discussing a preferential trade agreement](https://en.antaranews.com/news/426189/indonesia-brazil-consider-establishing-indonesia-mecosur-pta) 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.

## What this means

Indonesian palm oil, nickel products and textiles gain preferential entry to South America if the Brazil talks advance, while Brazilian agricultural exporters gain access to a market of 280 million people. The deeper mechanism is settlement: every bilateral arrangement that clears in local currency reduces the volume of trade that requires dollar funding, and reduced dollar demand at the margin is what erodes, over years rather than months, the cost advantage the United States gets from the dollar's role as the world's primary reserve currency (sometimes called the "exorbitant privilege"). The constraint is that local currency settlement requires liquid hedging markets, which most of these country pairs do not yet have.

## What to watch

- Whether Indonesia and Brazil publish a product list for the preferential agreement, which would show whether the deal covers meaningful volumes or only symbolic goods.
- Progress on BRICS local-currency payment infrastructure, since settlement plumbing is what determines whether these deals actually reduce dollar demand.
- Membership decisions at the September BRICS summit, because each addition changes the bloc's share of global trade and its bargaining weight.