Photo:   Prensa Latina

By Roberto Morejón

The BRICS Group is a new international actor, but it stands as an alternative of great interest to the global South, and this is highlighted by Cuba.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez participated at the invitation of Russia in the city of Nizhny Novgorod in the expanded meeting of foreign ministers of that group, with five founding members of great international weight, to whom others were later added for a total of 11.

In an example of the peaceful objectives of the BRICS, the meeting supported mediation proposals for a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Ukraine and advocated the strengthening of integration and cooperation, based on multilateralism and respect for diversity.

This is a master line of a mechanism made up of countries with which the largest of the Antilles has a high degree of identification in many issues on the multilateral agenda.

From this understanding it is possible for Havana to strengthen bilateral ties and with such promising initiatives as the Eurasian Economic Union, as an observer state, and the Belt and Road.

The Caribbean nation has also brought to the BRICS the willingness to share its experience in the medical-pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, with an eye toward benefits in the Global South.

As its Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez stressed, Cuba considers the consolidation of the New Bank for the Development of the BRICS, headed by former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, notable.

Much more so when their projects must rely on the use of national currencies, which would constitute a valid response to the hegemony of the dollar, tenaciously used by the United States as a weapon for unilateral sanctions.

Along these paths of cooperation towards a new civilized coexistence, Cuba appreciates that the BRICS is moving, to which it attributes a cardinal role in finding palliatives to the current world food crisis.

Ideas like these, highlighted by the Caribbean archipelago now in Russia, were also defended by President Miguel Díaz-Canel when Cuba attended the BRICS Summit in South Africa in August 2023 as a guest.

On that occasion, the homeland of José Martí attended on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, an opportune moment to advocate for a greater confluence of ideas between that bloc and the BRICS, always in defense of the legitimate claims of the nations of the South.