As Oil Prices Rise, BRICS Leaders Have What U.S. Doesn’t: Iran at the Table

As Oil Prices Rise, BRICS Leaders Have What U.S. Doesn’t: Iran at the Table - The New York Times

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As Oil Prices Rise, BRICS Leaders Have What U.S. Doesn’t: Iran at the Table

Even so, finding unity among the loose grouping of emerging economies will be difficult as the war in the Middle East strains their own interests.

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!A person on a motorcycle passes a large flower wall displaying "BRICS SUMMIT." The wall is decorated with colorful flowers.

*BRICS signage in New Delhi on Friday. The Indian capital has largely been shut down for the meeting.

Credit...

Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters*

By

David Pierson and Alex Travelli

Reporting from New Delhi

Sept. 12, 2026

Updated 2:30 a.m. ET

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The summit of the BRICS group of emerging economies is designed to show what world leadership looks like when the West is not in the room.

And as widening clashes in the Middle East send global energy prices soaring, the gathering in New Delhi this weekend gives the leaders of China, India and Russia something Washington does not have: a seat at the table with Iran.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India is hosting the BRICS club — named after its earliest members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — that has been conceived as a counterweight to the West.

The Indian capital has largely been shut down for the meeting. Soldiers in khaki uniforms carrying rifles patrolled the streets, and steel road blocks cluttered the city center. Highways leading from the airport were also blanketed with BRICS signs depicting Mr. Modi alongside slogans such as: “Together we build, together we rise.”

That slogan points to the hope that the BRICS group has of projecting solidarity among its membership, which has expanded in recent years to include countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. The message of unity stands in contrast to the global friction emanating from the Trump administration’s tariffs and the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which has disrupted global energy corridors.

In reality, expectations are low that BRICS, a loose bloc, will be able to step up to fill that gap in leadership, let alone broker a diplomatic off-ramp to the crisis in the Middle East.

David Pierson

covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.

Alex Travelli

is a correspondent based in New Delhi, writing about business and economic developments in India and the rest of South Asia.

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