NEW DELHI RECALIBRATES ITS LATIN AMERICAN POLICY

New Delhi can and should view Latin America as one region, to develop a foreign policy that caters specifically to the region-one that is anchored in economic diplomacy.

- Hari Seshasayee

India’s most strategic commercial partner in the region is Venezuela, home to the world’s largest petroleum reserves. Yet, IndiaVenezuela relations have seen setbacks over the past few years; since October 2020, India has not imported any crude petroleum oil from Venezuela due to the looming threat of American secondary sanctions

The recent visit of India’s External Affairs Minister (EAM) Dr S. Jaishankar to Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay was met with much fanfare in a part of the world that rarely ever sees the Indian canciller (Spanish for foreign minister). In fact, the last time India’s EAM made a bilateral visit—not including visits to multilateral summits—to a Latin American country was Yashwant Sinha’s visit to Brazil in 2003. Jaishankar was received with full honours, and besides meeting with his counterparts, also met the head of state in each country.

One crucial and recent development stands behind Jaishankar’s visit, and has so far gone unnoticed in the media coverage across India and Latin America.