Saudi Arabia largest trading partner of BRICS

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the Kingdom is the largest trading partner of the BRICS group in the Middle East.

He made the remarks during a ministerial meeting of the BRICS Friends in Cape Town. “Trade relations with the BRICS countries have witnessed continued growth, reflecting the excellent and developed relations among the countries of the group. The total bilateral trade with the countries of the group increased from US$81 billion in 2017 to US$128 billion in 2021 and US$160 in 2022.

Prince Faisal affirmed that Saudi Arabia is keen to develop future cooperation with the BRICS group by benefiting from the Kingdom’s capabilities to meet common interests and achieve prosperity for all.

He explained that the Kingdom shares basic values with the BRICS countries, namely the belief that relations between countries are based on the principles of respect for sovereignty, non-interference, adherence to international law, the existence of multilateral frameworks and collective action as reference points to face common challenges.

“The Kingdom also shares with other countries its belief in the importance of peace, security and stability in order to refocus efforts toward national development and common prosperity,” he said.

The Saudi minister added that the Kingdom continues to be committed to working with international partners to achieve the goals of sustainable development by 2030, and to intensify global efforts to enhance food and energy security amid recurring crises and supply chain issues.

He mentioned that the Kingdom is a leading country in the field of humanitarian and development aid in all fields worldwide as it is among the top 10 donors to low- and middle-income countries.

Iran’s annual trade with ECO members reaches US$20.5 billion

According to Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), country’s trade with the members of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) reached U$20.5 billion in the calendar year 1401.

According to Mohammad Rezvani-Far, Iran exported US$13 billion worth of commodities to the member nations, while the imports from these were reported at US$7.5 billion.

Referring to the trade potentials of ECO member countries in various fields, such as rail and land transport, common borders, as well as territorial and population size, Rezvani-Far said the volume of commercial exchanges with ECO members should be more than this figure.

“IRICA is fully prepared to take the necessary measures for increasing the volume of trade and transit exchanges with ECO members in order to achieve the organization’s goals set according to the ECO agreement,” he said.

The official underlined the development of transit ties with ECO members as a way of boosting trade exchanges with the mentioned countries.

“Iran has many customs agreements and memorandums with ECO member countries, and in order for these agreements to be operational in line with the provisions of the ECO agreement, it is suggested that the ECO secretariat announces the necessary measures needed to be taken with the cooperation of the members,” he noted.

Iran and ECO members traded more than 23.723 million tons of goods worth US$11.71 billion during the Iranian calendar year 1400, of which the share of exports was 18.419 million tons of goods worth US$6.890 billion and the share of imports from these countries was 5.312 million tons worth US$4.819 billion.

Petroleum products, dairy products, foodstuff, fresh and dried fruits, juices and citrus fruits, carpets, saffron, fish, caviar, ornamental aquatic products, various stones, construction equipment, clothing, industrial equipment, bags and shoes, medicine, and health supplies, as well as plastic products, were Iran’s main exported items to ECO members last year, while basic goods, industrial machinery, raw materials for production, and medical supplies and medicine, were the top imported goods from ECO member states.

The Economic Cooperation Organization or ECO is an Asian political and economic intergovernmental organization that was founded in 1985 in Tehran by the leaders of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey.

 

Asia security summit kicks off amid US-China tensions

Asia's top security meeting opened on Friday, with intensifying competition between the United States and China expected to dominate a weekend of high-level speeches, backroom military dealings and delicate diplomacy.

The Shangri-La Dialogue, which attracts senior military officers, diplomats, weapons makers and security analysts from around the globe, is taking place June 02-04 in Singapore.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will deliver the keynote address on Friday evening, before US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and China's new Defence Minister Li Shangfu are expected to trade barbs in speeches over the weekend.

The relationship between the US and China is at its lowest point in decades, as the two superpowers remain deeply divided over everything from the sovereignty of Taiwan to cyber espionage and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Hopes that the summit in Singapore could be a chance to mend ties between Washington and Beijing were dealt a blow last week when Li declined an offer to meet with Austin.

Li, who was named China's new defence minister in March, was sanctioned by the US in 2018 over weapons purchases from Russia.

Albanese's speech comes as Australia tries to strike a delicate balance between its strong ties to the US and its often tense relationship with China, which buys the bulk of its valuable iron ore and is its biggest trading partner.

A deal announced in March to buy US nuclear-powered submarines threatens to strain Australia's fragile ties with Beijing, which has been critical of the plan.

Australia is due to spend US$250 billion over three decades on the submarine program, part of a broader security pact with the US and Britain known as AUKUS.

Australia is also part of the Five Eyes intelligence collection and sharing network, along with the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand – a grouping that Chinese officials say is part of the West’s lingering cold war mentality and an attempt to contain its rise.

Since being elected in May 2022, the Albanese Labor government has sought closer ties with ASEAN countries. Australia’s defence chief has said that as great power competition in the region persists, his country is focused on deterring conflict and deepening engagement with partners, including Pacific island and South East Asian nations.

Can BRICS dare to challenge US hegemony?

BRICS includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It will hold its first ministerial meeting on Friday and Saturday in preparation for heads of state summit in August. This year's gathering will be held in Cape Town, South Africa.

Around 20 non-BRICS foreign ministers will be in attendance at the end of the week, with many countries actively expressing an interest in becoming members.

During last year's BRICS summit in China, a strong message was delivered of putting development on top of everything else on the international agenda. As Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out at the UN General Assembly, the goal of the initiative is that no country or individual should be left behind in pursuing development.

As the rotating chair switches to South Africa, among the themes of this year's summit is multilateralism in promoting international development.

It's no surprise that the success of the BRICS mechanism has attracted many like-minded nations who are expressing a desire to join, from the UAE in Asia to Algeria in Africa and Argentina in Latin America.

Among other issues on the agenda at the BRICS summit in August is increased economic autonomy. Another is plans to decide on admitting new members and what criteria they would have to meet.

Talks on the enlargement of the bloc are mainly based on the interest of other countries over the self-made economic prosperity of its members, as other nations who seek BRICS membership are growing tired of dealing with the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.

According to Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran are in talks to join the economic bloc.

“What will be discussed is the expansion of BRICS and the modalities of how this will happen,” Bloomberg has cited his as saying.

“Thirteen countries have formally asked to join and another six have asked informally. We are getting applications to join every day.” 

Since its formation as the four-member BRIC in 2006, the bloc has only added one new member, South Africa, in 2010, which made it BRICS.

In March, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said international interest in the BRICS group was huge, Saudi Arabia is one, she said. Others are United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Algeria, and Argentina, as well as Mexico and Nigeria."

Iran is said to have already applied to join BRICS and its foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has confirmed he will be participating in the Cape Town meeting at the official invitation of South Africa.  

The latest submissions for membership give substance to the argument of the rapidly changing global developments following the Ukraine, Yemen and Afghanistan wars.

Among the attractive aspects of BRICS is that nations view the alliance of emerging markets as an alternative, and not necessarily a challenge, to a US-led world order which is weakening, as experts point out, because of America's unilateral foreign policy blunders.

Experts also argue that Europe lacks any sovereign world vision, as witnessed by the Ukraine war, where it has taken its marching orders from Washington and failed to bring peace to Ukraine, as European households suffer from record inflation as a direct result of the conflict on its doorstep.

The Ukraine war has had a direct impact at international scale when it comes to food and energy.

In the absence of any willpower to stamp its authority on regional affairs, let alone global affairs, Europe has, in essence, failed the international community as a reliable economic partner, forcing many to seek alternatives to the West.

Iran for instance has the second largest gas reserves in the world, something that Europe is desperately searching for, but has not approached Tehran about, because of its bizarre compliance to illegal US unilateral sanctions. It now looks that the much-needed Iranian commodity will most likely be heading elsewhere.

While BRICS has its own bank (New Development Bank), it is not as large as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but this could be down to just a matter of time as more countries seek to join the economic bloc.

The World Bank and the IMF were founded back in the 1940's and have failed in their declared goals of creating a more stable and prosperous global economy.

The austerity that comes with loans has brought increasingly high levels of poverty and inequality to countries who borrowed money from them. Just ask the people of Greece or Argentina. Critics accuse the US of having unfair influence on the World Back and the IMF.

On the other hand, the New Development Bank or the BRICS Bank, which was just established in 2015 and with its stated aim to help build a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable future for the planet is appealing.

It may sound like a good advertising slogan, but the facts on the ground show BRICS is attracting a record number of clients seeking to expand the bloc.

According to reports, BRICS is in talks with Saudi Arabia to become a member of its New Development Bank. While Saudi Arabia has yet to confirm this, such reports were unheard of just a year ago.

The idea itself makes sense as most oil purchasing clients are now based in the East and Latin America. But it will be a major setback for the United States, which will see an agonizing decline of petrodollars.

In the early 1970s, Washington and Riyadh reached an agreement that Saudi oil sales to all international clients be sold in dollars in exchange for American military protection, something that the US failed to adhere to in the Saudi conflict with Yemen.

Today, Saudi Arabia is in talks with Beijing to sell its oil to China in the Yuan and has restored diplomatic ties with Iran in another blow to the US and its extremely mischievous proxy in the region Israel.

Should the Kingdom become a New Development Bank member, it would be a boost to the bank as well as for Saudi Arabia itself, as BRICS members, among other things, provide a safety net in times of difficulty.

For instance, BRICS members have not bowed to NATO pressure to join the sanctions regime against Russia.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has argued that BRICS nations should establish their own common currency, highlighting the advantages of such a unified economic measure that would be independent of the US dollar.

Under a US dollar dominated world order, prosperity has been taken over by poverty while peace has been replaced by violence.

In April, BRICS' deputy ministers and special envoys held a meeting in Cape Town to discuss, among other issues, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as developments in the Persian Gulf states, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Western Sahara and Yemen.

Such platforms provide an opportunity to bring emerging markets together to discuss both the financial and political aspects of the world.

 

Will Putin be arrested if he attends BRICS meeting in South Africa?

BRICS foreign ministers on Thursday asserted their bloc's ambition to rival Western powers but their talks in South Africa were overshadowed by questions over whether Russia's president would be arrested if he attended a summit in August.

South Africa's foreign minister Naledi Pandor said her country was mulling options if Vladimir Putin, the subject of a war crimes arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), came to the planned BRICS summit in Johannesburg.

As a member of the ICC, South Africa would theoretically be required to arrest Putin, and Pandor was bombarded with questions about that as she arrived for a first round of talks with representatives from Brazil, Russia, India and China.

"The answer is the president (Cyril Ramaphosa) will indicate what the final position of South Africa is. As matters stand an invitation has been issued to all (BRICS) heads of state," she said.

At a news conference later, the ministers side-stepped a barrage of questions about the Putin issue.

The ICC accused Putin in March of the war crime of forcibly deporting children from Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine. Moscow denies the allegations. South Africa had invited Putin in January.

Putin has not confirmed his plans, with the Kremlin only saying Russia would take part at the proper level.

The ministers sought to focus attention on their ambition to build up their influence in a multi-polar world.

India's Subrahmanyam Jaishankar spoke of the concentration of economic power which he said leaves too many nations at the mercy of too few, and of the need to reform global decision-making including by the United Nations Security Council.

"Old ways cannot address new situations. We are a symbol of change. We must act," he said.

Once viewed as a loose association of disparate emerging economies, BRICS has in recent years taken more concrete shape, driven initially by Beijing and, since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022, with added impetus from Moscow.

The bloc launched a New Development Bank in 2015, though that has stopped funding projects in Russia to comply with sanctions imposed by Western countries following the invasion of Ukraine.

Pandor said a senior executive from the bank had briefed the ministers about the potential use of alternative currencies to the current internationally traded currencies.

She said the aim was to ensure that we do not become victim to sanctions that have secondary effects on countries that have no involvement in issues that have led to those unilateral sanctions.

The ministers also discussed plans to potentially admit new members to the club. Pandor said more work was needed to make that possible and she hoped a report on the matter would be ready by the August summit.

China's Vice Minister Ma Zhaoxu said his country was happy about the prospect of more countries joining BRICS as it would increase the influence of the bloc and give it more power to serve the interests of developing countries.

The BRICS bloc "was inclusive ... in sharp contrast to some countries' small circle, and so I believe the enlargement of BRICS will be beneficial to the BRICS countries," he said.

Iran's Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud were both present in Cape Town to participate in the BRICS meeting, which continues on Friday.

Their two countries, along with Venezuela, Argentina, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates are among those that have either formally applied to join BRICS or expressed interest, officials said.

 

Saudi Arabia and UAE getting out of US hegemony

I am delighted to share with my readers an article written by David Ottaway of Wilson Center. This should be an eye opener for the Arab monarchies. Their growing tilt towards China and Russia challenges the US hegemony.

Much to the anxiety of policymakers in Washington, the two most important Arab partners in the Persian Gulf to the United States are asserting studied neutrality in the emerging Cold War with Russia and China.

Both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are fast expanding their relations with China while declaring their non-alignment in the new feuds over Ukraine and Taiwan.

This past December, Saudi Arabia signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement with China. The UAE and China signed a similar partnership accord in 2018.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) warmly welcomed President Xi Jinping to Riyadh for the signing of what the Chinese called an “epoch-making milestone in the history of China-Arab relations.”

The UAE became the first Gulf Arab nation to purchase Chinese military aircraft, including trainer jets in likely preparation for flying China’s most advanced warplanes, the FC-31 stealth fighter.

The two Gulf Arab monarchies have paid scant attention to US calls for economic sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Nor have they abided President Biden’s pleas to make up for the loss of Russian oil in order to lower gasoline prices for American consumers.

To the contrary, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has cut production by 3.6 million barrels a day over the past six months, led by Saudi Arabia in close collaboration with Russia.

The question arises whether these Arab monarchies can afford a policy of non-alignment with a tilt toward China in face of pressure from Washington to stay in its corner. Their security still depends heavily on the US and the vast bulk of their arms remain “Made in America.” China has scant military presence in the Gulf and has so far offered no security assurances of any kind.

On the other hand, neither has the United States ever committed itself in writing to the “ironclad” guarantee of “a swift, overwhelming and decisive response” that President Biden pledged to South Korea in April in case of a nuclear attack from North Korea.

The current administration, like those before it, has limited itself to myriad verbal reassurances of US aid to help the Gulf Arab monarchies help themselves.

The only commitment Biden has made to Gulf Arab states’ security is to never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. Still, decades of efforts to convince the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to form a US-backed common air defense system against Iran have failed.

There is a long history to end Saudi Arabia’s lopsided dependence on the US and to cultivate its relationship with China in particular as a counterbalance.

In 2004, the former Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, explained to me, only half-jokingly, the Saudi vision of nonalignment in these terms, Saudi Arabia was not tied to the US in an unbreakable Catholic marriage. It was, he reminded me, a Muslim country with the right to have up to four wives at once, so long as it treated them all equally.

At the time, Saudi Arabia had long since reached out to China to court a second wife. In 1985, then Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, outraged the Reagan administration by traveling incognito to Beijing to open negotiations on the purchase of Chinese medium-range ballistic missiles, the East Wind CSS-2, capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Saudi Arabia did not yet have diplomatic relations with the Communist country at the time. The Saudis even managed to smuggle the missiles into the kingdom without the knowledge of the US government. The CIA only discovered the Saudi deceit in early 1988, touching off a full-scale crisis in US-Saudi relations and nearly triggering Israeli military retaliation.

Ironically, Saudi Arabia finally established diplomatic relations with China just before the outbreak of the 1990-91 Gulf War when the US dispatched 500,000 soldiers to defend the Kingdom against Iraq and liberate Kuwait from its occupying troops.

Although, it waited until 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union—and demise of communism—to reactivate its long-frozen ties with Moscow.

Today, China is Saudi Arabia’s number one trading partner and customer of its oil exports. Russia, the world’s biggest non-OPEC exporter, cooperates closely with the Kingdom to maintain high oil prices at US expense.

Neither China nor Russia looms as a security threat to the Gulf Arab states who are instead concerned with Iran, particularly Saudi Arabia, which views Tehran as its main rival for Gulf primacy. In the face of Iranian expansion and aggression in the Gulf and beyond, the US security umbrella has proven increasingly leaky.

There was no US response when an Iranian drone and missile barrage on Saudi oil facilities knocked out half of the kingdom’s oil production in September 2019.

Then US president Donald Trump, declared he was in no rush to go to war with Iran and observed, to the consternation of the Saudis that was an attack on Saudi Arabia. That wasn’t an attack on us.

Nor did the Biden administration react when Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen carried out several drone and missile attacks on the UAE in January 2022. In both cases, the US response was limited to sending Patriot missiles to bolster their defenses against future incidents.

The six Gulf Arab monarchies, though grouped together in the GCC, have no common defense strategy or military relationship with the US. Only three of them—Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar—rank as a Major Non-NATO Ally.

Only four—Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and the UAE—have defense cooperation agreements with Washington mainly to facilitate US arms sales and military training. Although, Qatar does hosts US Central Command’s regional headquarters and Bahrain the US Fifth Fleet.

The outlier is Saudi Arabia, the GCC’s military keystone and America’s oldest Middle East partner dating back to 1945. It has never wanted a permanent American military presence in the Kingdom, or to become a Major Non-NATO ally, and has not even asked for a formal defense cooperation agreement.

It has also always looked askance at US efforts to form a collective compact with its Gulf Arab partners, such as when former President Trump unsuccessfully sought to launch a Middle East Strategic Alliance.

Nonetheless, the Saudi military is armed to the teeth with tens of billions of dollars of US arms and hopes to buy the most sophisticated US warplane, the F-35.

It has reportedly, for the first time, sought a written US security guarantee against future Iranian attacks. This comes amid complex negotiations over a deal with the Biden administration to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

The obstacles to adopting a nonaligned posture with a tilt toward China have become painfully apparent in the Biden administration’s two-year-long negotiations with the UAE over its purchase of the F-35 fighter jet. The UAE is arguably America’s closest GCC military partner; it was the only one to send soldiers and warplanes to fight alongside American forces in Afghanistan. Still, the F-35 talks remain inconclusive because of US security concerns over the UAE’s expanding military ties with China. These include, according to US officials, an indication the UAE is allowing China to build a naval base there.

At some point soon, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will have to decide whether to live with a leaky security arrangement led by the US or take their chances with China or Russia. Buying Chinese or Russian arms is certain to incite Washington’s wrath and make purchase of advanced American weaponry ever more problematic. But it remains very unlikely Chinese or Russian arms will resolve Saudi’s security dilemma.

China also has extensive economic interests and a comprehensive strategic agreement with Iran and, so far, has stuck its own strict nonalignment policy in the Iran-Saudi rivalry. Russia, on the other hand, has become closer to Iran militarily, selling its advanced SU-35 fighter jet to Tehran and buying Iranian drones for its war in Ukraine in return. The US security umbrella may be leaky but neither China nor Russia seems likely to offer even that.

 

 

Yemen: Operation to salvage FSO Safer gets under way

Yemeni Foreign Minister Ahmad Bin Mubarak said the groundwork has started for salvaging the decaying FSO Safer supertanker and averting an oil spill in the southern part of the Red Sea.

A technical team from SMIT Salvage, a leading Dutch dredging and maritime service provider, has arrived at Ras Isa Port, the minister said in a press release, noting that an alternative tanker will arrive in the coming few weeks.

The FSO Safer salvage operation is the fruit of years-long cooperation between the Yemeni government on one hand, the United Nations and international partners on the other, he said.

Bin Mubarak attributed the long delay of the operation to the stubbornness of the Houthi militias who kept rejecting less expensive solutions to the problem.

Since the Yemen Pledging Conference, held in The Netherlands in May last year, until the second event, co-hosted by the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in early May 2023, the UN has raised US$107 million for salvaging the supertanker.

The UN operation aims, at the first stage, to unload up to 1.14 million barrels of oil from the decaying tanker into another one, now en route to site.

The second stage envisages providing a permanent alternative to Safer which has been moored in western coast of Yemen since mid-1980s.

FSO Safer, a floating storage facility, holds oil coming from Safer onshore oilfields in Maarib governorate as a prelude to unloading it to oil tankers.

The maintenance of the facility has come to a standstill since 2015 after the Houthis rebels denied the UN experts access to site which risked triggering a huge environment crisis in the region.

UN officials have been warning for years that the Red Sea and Yemen’s coastline was at risk as the Safer tanker could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.

The Ndeavor tanker, with a technical team from Boskalis/ SMIT, is in place at the Safer tanker off the coast of Yemen’s Ras Isa, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen David Gressley said on Twitter from on board the Ndeavor.

The war in Yemen caused suspension of maintenance operations on the Safer in 2015. The UN has warned its structural integrity has significantly deteriorated and it is at risk of exploding.

The Safer is set to transfer its oil to a replacement tanker, the Nautica, which set sail from China in early April. The salvage operation cannot be paid for by the sale of the oil because it is not clear who owns it, the UN has said.

“Work at sea will start very soon. Additional funding is still important to finish the process,” the UN said on its Yemen Twitter account