Bloomberg Issues Pronunciamiento That BRICS Expansion Will Fail

July 29, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Over the last few days, Bloomberg has taken upon itself the responsibility of announcing to the whole world that the BRICS plan to increase its membership into “BRICS-Plus” is destined to fail. Not a news report, the Bloomberg wires should be read as a statement of intent by the City of London and Wall Street.

In a July 27 wire, Bloomberg reported that “India and Brazil oppose expanding membership of the bloc” and are “pushing back against a Chinese bid to rapidly expand the BRICS group.” Citing unnamed officials in each country as the only sources for their evaluation, Bloomberg wrote that “India wants strict rules on how and when other nations could move closer to the group, without formally expanding it.” Brazil, they claim, is concerned that an expanded BRICS would be read as a provocation by the G7, and “Brazil wants to avoid expansion partly because of these worries.” South Africa, according to Bloomberg, “supports discussing different membership options to accommodate this, but doesn’t necessarily oppose expansion.”

Bloomberg continued that “Russia does not hold a firm position on expanding BRICS,” a flat-out fabrication in light of Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov’s comments to reporters on July 22: “Next year the Russian Federation will chair BRICS, the summit will be held in Kazan. Let’s see what the coming months will bring in terms of defining the parameters of BRICS expansion and how many heads of state will come to Kazan, it’s an open question. I think it will be more than the current five,” said Ryabkov.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded matter of factly to an inquiry by Bloomberg: “The BRICS leaders meeting last year authorized the expansion of membership, adding more members to BRICS is the political consensus of the five BRICS countries.”

Bloomberg is also being used as a conduit for threats to countries that have announced their intention to apply for BRICS membership, such as Argentina. For example, last week Bloomberg “reported” that unnamed EU officials had told Argentina that it should not try to join BRICS at this time, because “it would send the wrong message” in the middle of the Ukraine war. Other press accounts indicate that Argentina has every intention of continuing with its BRICS application.