BRICS leaders have called for urgent WTO reforms and emphasised resilience in global supply chains, condemning protectionist tariffs, sanctions, and environmental trade restrictions, amid efforts to deepen intra-BRICS trade and support small businesses.
BRICS leaders have used their New Delhi declaration to renew pressure for a stronger World Trade Organization, warning that rising tariffs and other trade barriers are putting the multilateral trading system under strain.
According to the declaration, the bloc wants a rules-based trading order that is open, fair, predictable and centred on the WTO. It also called for the swift restoration of a fully functioning dispute-settlement system, including new Appellate Body members, after years of deadlock have weakened the body’s ability to resolve disputes.
The statement went further by criticising unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures, saying such steps distort trade and create uncertainty for global commerce. It also condemned coercive economic measures, including sanctions and secondary sanctions, as incompatible with international law. Related accounts of the summit said BRICS also opposed trade restrictions justified on environmental grounds when they are used to disguise protectionism.
The declaration folded trade policy into a broader push for more resilient supply chains. It backed efforts to make global value chains more transparent, efficient and inclusive, and encouraged digitisation, technical co-operation and better connectivity to improve trade facilitation. The bloc also signalled support for a BRICS Global Value Chain Action Plan for 2026 to 2030, as well as discussions on easier intra-BRICS trade in agricultural goods.
Another major theme was access to trade finance for small businesses. The declaration welcomed BRICS guiding principles for credit assessment frameworks for export-oriented micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, or MSMEs, and urged innovative financing tools, including digital and platform-based solutions, to help firms that struggle to borrow. That builds on work by BRICS trade ministers in Jaipur, where they adopted guiding principles aimed at tackling an estimated $2.5 trillion global trade finance gap facing MSMEs and explored shifts from collateral-based lending towards cash-flow-based assessment.
The declaration also backed the accession bids of Ethiopia and Iran to the WTO, and renewed support for wider reform of global economic governance, including the Bretton Woods institutions. Reports on the summit said the declaration was the product of negotiations spanning hundreds of meetings across India, underlining how central trade has become to BRICS’ wider economic agenda.
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