A major gas deal between the UAE’s XRG and Malaysia’s PETRONAS in Turkmenistan highlights the deepening BRICS-centered cooperation in Central Asia and signals the growing momentum of a multipolar global order.
BRICS Growth
The implications are far-reaching, especially given other important regional news. For instance, a recent announcement from a conference in Gorgan, Iran, revealed that Iran and Turkmenistan intend to increase bilateral trade by 30%. The Tehran Times news tells us the preliminary agreements included the petrochemicals, petroleum products, construction materials, food industries, textiles, and logistics sectors. Iran joined the BRICS League last year.
Iran’s BRICS membership will increase its political and economic influence, reduce its reliance on the U.S. dollar, and offer access to financial support and trade opportunities that have been sorely lacking for the past few decades. Western analysts say Iran’s inclusion in the bloc will have a negative impact, but this seems unlikely. A few points bear looking at.
Iran and Uzbekistan recently pledged to boost trade between the two countries by at least $2 billion. At a conference earlier this month, Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade, Mohammad Atabak called for a “fundamental transformation.” Iran’s geographic position is one of the key factors for attracting trade renegotiations with landlocked countries like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan. Iran’s ports open up massive trade possibilities for these Central Asian countries. So far, Iran/Uzbekistan trade has revolved around business in the construction, petrochemicals, food production, agriculture, and building materials sectors. Uzbekistan is one of nine nations announced as BRICS “partner countries” in January of this year.
A Look at Geography
By now, the trend and the importance of these cooperations should be evident. This is especially true for readers with an interest in geography. To add one more piece to the ever-clearer multipolar world puzzle, Indonesia and Uzbekistan are about to launch negotiations on the preferential trade agreement (IU-PTA). Other negotiations and partnerships are progressing across all of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. However, the narrow focus we are looking at here should be of keen interest, especially to the increasingly hostile Europeans.
Since 78% of the world’s population is in Asia and Africa, and given another 8% live in Latin America, anyone invested in trade of any kind has to see Europe as a slumping market. These regions also contain most of the world’s remaining natural resources, and many of the countries mentioned are rapidly developing in all industrial capabilities. With the United States making its only safe play by becoming more isolationist, I don’t envy the upper-middle classes in Germany, France, or the UK. After all, who will need a VW in Uzbekistan when a Russian or Iranian IKCO Reera crossover will do nicely?
The Europeans are scrambling in chaos mode, trying to keep Russia bogged down in a proxy war in Ukraine. President Trump is focused on rebuilding America’s industrial and job base. And the “rest” of the world is emerging as it should have decades ago. With today’s technologies at anyone’s fingertips, the competitive nature of business and geopolitics has already left the launch pad. As for Europe, how many will just stand slew footed looking up at the vapor trail?
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books
