Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday spoke with Venezuela’s appearing President Delcy Rodriguez and agreed to deepen ties and take them to “new heights” within the years forward amid tensions with the US. That is the primary interplay between PM Modi and Rodriguez following the dramatic seize of long-time autocratic President Nicolas Maduro in an in a single day US army operation on January 3.
“Spoke with Performing President of Venezuela, Ms Delcy Rodriguez. We agreed to additional deepen and broaden our bilateral partnership in all areas, with a shared imaginative and prescient of taking India-Venezuela relations to new heights within the years forward,” PM Modi tweeted.
In an official assertion, PM Modi obtained a telephone name from Rodriguez. The 2 leaders agreed to additional broaden and deepen the India-Venezuela partnership in all areas, together with commerce and funding, vitality, digital expertise, well being, agriculture and people-to-people ties.
Each leaders exchanged views on varied regional and world problems with mutual curiosity and underscored the significance of their shut cooperation for the World South.
The PM Modi-Rodriguez talks assume significance as US President Donald Trump eyes Venezuelan crude oil reserves and threatens tariffs on nations not reaching a commerce take care of nations, together with India. Presently, Washington has imposed a whole of fifty per cent tariffs on New Delhi over its Russian crude oil imports.
RELIEF FOR INDIA AMID TARIFFS?
The White Home has signalled it was prepared to let India buy Venezuelan oil below a brand new US-controlled association, doubtlessly reopening a channel of commerce that had been stalled by American sanctions.
In March final yr, Trump imposed a 25 per cent tariff on items imported into the US from any nation that buys Venezuelan oil (straight or not directly).
Lately, US Vitality Secretary Christopher Wright mentioned the US intends to promote 30 million to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude which are at present in storage, and subsequently supply extra oil from future manufacturing — a step that might reshape segments of the worldwide oil market with Washington overseeing the method.
In an interview with Fox Enterprise, Wright defined that Venezuelan oil could be allowed to movement once more, however solely via a tightly regulated framework. “In order that oil, we’re permitting it to movement. Once more, it’s marketed by america authorities. The cash’s gonna movement into accounts,” he had mentioned.
In an interview with Fox Enterprise, Wright defined that Venezuelan oil could be allowed to movement once more, however solely via a tightly regulated framework. “In order that oil, we’re permitting it to movement. Once more, it’s marketed by america authorities. The cash’s gonna movement into accounts,” he had mentioned.
Trump, who has pledged to promote as much as 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude, claimed that oil corporations would make investments “no less than USD 100 billion of their cash” into reviving Venezuela’s vitality sector. The feedback that carry weight as Washington makes an attempt to spice up output in a rustic sitting on the world’s largest confirmed oil reserves however hampered by years of sanctions, mismanagement and underinvestment.
The US has imposed a number of rounds of sanctions on Venezuela over the previous decade, attributable to elements, together with political repression, corruption and weakening of democratic establishments below the regimes of Maduro and Hugo Chavez.
ABOUT INDIA-VENEZUELA TIES, OIL TRADE
India and Venezuela have historically maintained heat bilateral relations with diplomatic engagement spanning a long time. Vitality cooperation, particularly in oil, has been a key element of this relationship because the early 2000s. For a few years, Venezuela was an essential crude oil provider to India, with Indian refiners processing important volumes of heavy crude from Caracas.
At occasions, India imported lots of of hundreds of barrels per day, at one level almost half of Venezuela’s whole exports. Nevertheless, the oil commerce was sharply curtailed after US sanctions had been tightened within the late 2010s, forcing Indian corporations to chop purchases to keep away from secondary penalties.
By the 2024–25 fiscal yr, India’s crude oil imports from Venezuela had declined dramatically — down over 80 per cent in contrast with the earlier yr — and bilateral commerce general remained modest.
India’s imports from Venezuela in FY 2025 had been valued at roughly USD 364.5 million, with crude oil accounting for round USD 255 million, whereas exports had been valued round USD 95 million, led by prescribed drugs.
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