This year’s BRICS leaders’ summit was relatively subdued compared with recent meetings of the bloc, which underwent a rapid expansion and recently added several new members. But the event, held on Sunday and Monday in Rio de Janeiro, still managed to attract U.S. President Donald Trump’s ire.

Only half of the bloc’s 10 member countries—Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, and South Africa—sent their heads of government to the summit, with major leaders such as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin passing on attending in person. In an attempt to avoid tariff threats from Trump, host Brazil emphasized issues such as economic development and climate rather than more contentious topics, such as the use of local currencies in intra-BRICS trade.

This year’s BRICS leaders’ summit was relatively subdued compared with recent meetings of the bloc, which underwent a rapid expansion and recently added several new members. But the event, held on Sunday and Monday in Rio de Janeiro, still managed to attract U.S. President Donald Trump’s ire.

Only half of the bloc’s 10 member countries—Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, and South Africa—sent their heads of government to the summit, with major leaders such as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin passing on attending in person. In an attempt to avoid tariff threats from Trump, host Brazil emphasized issues such as economic development and climate rather than more contentious topics, such as the use of local currencies in intra-BRICS trade.

That focus was in line with Brazil’s longtime stance on BRICS. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva likes to say the bloc is “not against anyone”; his top diplomatic advisor Celso Amorim recently argued that the group was “not the West, not the East, [but] the global south.”

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