The global debate surrounding the proposed Brics gold-backed trade currency has largely been framed as a technical monetary issue. Is it feasible? Will it challenge the dollar?
Can it be implemented? These questions, however, miss the deeper transformation underway in the international system. What is unfolding is not merely a currency conversation.
It is a sovereignty crisis. Across the Global South, a growing number of states are arriving at a sobering realisation: participation in the global economy no longer guarantees political security. Sovereignty, once presumed inviolable under international law, has become conditional.
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The modern international order was built on the assumption that economic integration produced stability. Trade would bind states together. Financial interdependence would discourage conflict.
Institutions would mediate disputes. Yet, the last two decades have revealed a different reality. Integration has not eliminated coercion; it has refined it.
Sanctions, asset seizures, payment-system exclusions and diplomatic isolation have emerged as instruments of enforcement. After pursuing independent energy pricing strategies and deepening partnerships outside Western financial institutions, Venezuela found itself subjected to one of the most extensive sanctions regimes in modern history. Billions in sovereign assets were frozen.
Access to international finance was severed. The legitimacy of the state itself became contested across diplomatic forums. Whatever one’s view of Venezuela’s internal politics, the precedent was unmistakable: economic autonomy could trigger systemic punishment.
Iran has faced sustained economic containment. Russia’s foreign reserves were frozen in 2022, an unprecedented act that shattered the assumption that central bank assets were untouchable. China faces technological decoupling and strategic containment. Across the Middle East and Asia, military rhetoric accompanies economic pressure.
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