India hosts the 18th BRICS Leaders' Summit on September 12-13, 2026, in New Delhi, just months after the bloc's foreign ministers failed to agree a joint statement on the US-led conflict against Iran. Brent crude trades above $97 a barrel as the war disrupts shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, exposing a split between the bloc's oil exporters and importers.
BRICS foreign ministers met in May 2026 and failed to produce a consensus statement on the Iran conflict, a preview of the tension now facing the leaders' summit. India, which has chaired the bloc since January 2026, must find language that all 11 member states can accept even as some of them sit on opposite sides of an active war.
A bloc split by its own members
The US-led conflict against Iran, which began on February 28, 2026, has turned the summit into a diplomatic minefield. Iran joined BRICS in 2024, alongside Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two countries with their own fraught history with Tehran. Getting all three to sign a joint declaration on peace and cooperation is no small task.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to attend, which would mark his first visit to India in seven years. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian are also expected, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosting. According to Crypto Briefing: "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability" is the theme India chose for its chairmanship.
Oil prices expose the divide
Brent crude is trading above $97 a barrel, driven largely by shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply passes daily. Prices have been flirting with the $100 mark.
For oil-exporting BRICS members such as Russia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the higher prices bring a revenue windfall. But for importers like India and China, they feed inflation and widen trade deficits.
What a second failed statement would signal
BRICS expanded from five members to eleven in 2024, adding Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Ethiopia, a move framed at the time as proof that the developing world wanted an alternative to US- and European-led institutions. Any agreement reached in New Delhi on energy cooperation, alternative payment systems or coordinated economic policy could shift trade flows and currency dynamics among BRICS members, but a second summit without a consensus statement would suggest the bloc has hit a structural ceiling on what it can achieve politically.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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