BRICS Wants More Trade Outside the Dollar. What Could It Mean for Nigeria's $28.1 Billion China Trade?
DA-X62 · Finance · By David Adeniji ·
BRICS leaders want more cross-border trade settled in local currencies. For Nigeria, a BRICS partner with $28.1 billion of China trade in 2025, the opportunity could be cheaper payments and less dollar pressure—but there are currency, geopolitical and U.S. trade risks hiding inside the idea.
Today's Signal
The 2026 BRICS New Delhi Declaration supports continued work on cross-border payment interoperability and trade settlements and investments using BRICS local currencies, while also criticising unilateral tariffs, non-tariff measures and non-UN-authorised sanctions.
Money Direction
Current trade route can involve naira → US dollar → trading-partner currency → foreign supplier. Greater local-currency settlement could enable naira → partner currency → supplier, potentially reducing intermediate dollar demand and transaction costs while creating new payment, treasury, FX and trade-finance infrastructure.
Opportunity Areas
Cross-border payments; banking; fintech; trade finance; FX technology; treasury services; import and export finance; payment infrastructure; currency risk management; China-Nigeria trade; AfCFTA payments and financial technology.
Skills Signal
Treasury management, foreign-exchange risk management, trade finance, international banking, payments technology, financial compliance, currency hedging, export documentation, international trade and geopolitical risk analysis.
Who Should Pay Attention
Importers, exporters, Nigerian banks, fintech companies, manufacturers importing machinery or inputs, commodity exporters, treasury professionals, payment companies, investors, policymakers and businesses trading with China, India, South Africa and other BRICS economies.
Watching Next
Whether Nigeria formally expands local-currency settlement with BRICS economies, use of the existing China currency-swap architecture, interoperability between payment systems, merchant and bank adoption, changes in dollar demand, Nigeria's trade balances with BRICS countries and any specific U.S. trade or diplomatic response.
DA-X62: What if a Nigerian importer buying Chinese machinery did not need dollars first?
BRICS leaders have backed more trade settlement in local currencies and faster, cheaper cross-border payment systems. They also criticised unilateral tariffs and sanctions without naming the United States.
This is not a new BRICS currency. It is potentially more practical than that.
Consider Nigeria. China-Nigeria goods trade reached about $28.1bn in 2025. U.S.-Nigeria trade was about $11.8bn. Nigeria is now a BRICS partner country, sitting economically between very large relationships.
If more China trade could move directly between naira and renminbi, Nigerian importers might reduce the need to buy dollars merely as an intermediate currency. Nigeria already has experience here through its currency-swap arrangement with China.
Follow the money differently: importer → naira → renminbi → Chinese supplier, rather than importer → naira → dollar → renminbi.
That could create opportunities for banks, payment companies, treasury teams, FX technology, trade-finance specialists and exporters.
But here comes the twist.
Removing the dollar from one transaction does not remove currency risk. If Nigeria imports far more from a country than it exports there, somebody still has to find enough of that country's currency to settle the imbalance.
There is also Washington.
The U.S. has not announced a new retaliation specifically against the New Delhi declaration. But President Trump previously threatened an additional 10% tariff against countries aligning with what he described as BRICS' anti-American policies.
Nigeria therefore has an interesting balancing act: reduce unnecessary dollar dependence without turning payment efficiency into geopolitical alignment.
The opportunity is not to replace one dependency with another. It is to give Nigerian trade more than one road.
Sources
BRICS New Delhi Declaration Reuters Nigeria Ministry of Foreign Affairs U.S. Treasury Congressional Research Service