"It is very crucial to see that we already have a trade of US$ 50 billion that will be US$ 100 billion in the year 2030."
Alberto Antonio Guani Amarilla, Uruguay's Ambassador to India and Coordinator of GRULAC, at the LAC FIRST conference in New Delhi, 24 June 2026. Read more
Introduction
Welcome back to Southern Currents, Ananta’s newsletter on India-Latin America relations. Our last edition was about urgency: Hormuz, the Venezuelan intervention, the scramble for minerals. This edition is about what happens once that urgency runs into the ordinary machinery of politics, a Peruvian election that took a month to certify, a Chilean delegation holding out for salmon and wine, an Argentine president whose feud with Brazil now has diplomatic consequences.
Six stories: Venezuela’s oil trade survived a pair of earthquakes even as India widened its crude search to Angola and pulled back from Iraq; Peru’s razor-thin election ended in a Fujimori win, and the next day India’s commerce minister confirmed the FTA talks are frozen. Chile’s CEPA hit friction over salmon and wine but is still tracking toward October. KABIL’s Argentina lithium project cleared an environmental hurdle. Argentina’s ambassador pushed for a bigger India-MERCOSUR pact just as Milei’s feud with Lula escalated into a recalled ambassador. And a new US$ 100 billion trade target raises the question this newsletter keeps returning to: is the ambition backed by anything concrete? A short note explains why Mexico doesn’t get its own story this time.
We hope these analyses offer perspectives not readily available elsewhere. As always, we welcome your thoughts.
Venezuela's Oil Trade Survives an Earthquake, but India's Diversification Race is Bigger than Venezuela
What Happened?
Venezuela was hit by two large earthquakes within hours of each other on 24 June 2026: a magnitude 7.2 quake roughly 160 kilometres west of Caracas, followed by a 7.5 quake near Moron on the north-central coast, close to much of the country’s refining infrastructure. Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company, reported no significant damage, and India’s import figures backed that up: Indian ports discharged 10.1 million barrels of Venezuelan crude in June, only slightly down from 10.2 million in May.
On 4 June, Indian officials said New Delhi would explore term oil contracts with Venezuela and upstream investment opportunities, as PDVSA works toward a year-end target of 1.37 million barrels per day, up from about 963,000 in December 2025, just before Maduro’s removal from power. HPCL Rajasthan Refinery Limited (HRRL), India’s first greenfield integrated refinery in a decade, began operations on 4 July and can process Venezuelan crude, though the shipping logistics still need to be worked out.
As the Hormuz disruption dragged into July, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum began testing new crude grades from Venezuela and Angola, while Indian Oil and Mangalore Refinery suspended crude loadings from Iraq entirely, judging a laden tanker through the Strait was no longer worth the risk.
Why does it Matter?
The earthquake was the first real stress test of Venezuela’s underinvested infrastructure, and loadings holding up is mildly encouraging. It doesn’t resolve the deeper capital problem our last edition laid out: Rystad Energy’s estimate that a meaningfully higher production level needs US$ 183 billion in capex by 2040, with US$ 30 to US$ 35 billion of it required in the next two to three years.
India’s shift from opportunistic buying to discussing term contracts and upstream investment is a real change in posture, though “exploring” is still far from “committing.” A term contract makes supply more predictable; only upstream equity would give India an actual stake in the resource. The more interesting story may be happening around Venezuela rather than in it: the Iraq suspension and Angola’s addition as a fourth diversification track shows Venezuela is one piece of a much bigger reshuffle.
What to Look Out for?
Whether “exploring” turns into an actual licence for ONGC Videsh is the clearest test of whether this relationship is deepening. Watch whether Reliance, Indian Oil, and Hindustan Petroleum keep Venezuelan volumes elevated into Q3 now that HRRL is running, and whether the Iraq suspension proves prolonged rather than precautionary; this will reshape India’s crude basket more than anything else in this edition.
Peru's Closest Election in Memory Ends in a Fujimori Win, and India's FTA Talks Freeze the Next Day
What Happened?
Peru’s presidential race, contested by 35 candidates in the first round on 12 and 13 April, sent Keiko Fujimori (roughly 17% of the vote) and leftist congressman Roberto Sanchez into a runoff on 7 June. Pollster Ipsos’s preliminary count showed a statistical tie on the Sunday night; by Monday, with about 95% of votes counted, Sanchez had edged ahead 50.10% to 49.90%. Over the following days the lead flipped, and by mid-June Fujimori was projected the winner.
Peru’s National Elections Board formally confirmed Fujimori as president-elect on 3 July, nearly a month after polls closed, with her final margin at roughly 35,000 votes with 99% counted. It’s her fourth run for the presidency, and she becomes Peru’s ninth president in ten years. The day after, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters that the India-Peru FTA is “unlikely to conclude soon,” citing unresolved disputes with regard to market access. The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has been under negotiation since 2017, and our last edition described it as on course for a mid-2026 conclusion.
Why does it Matter?
Our previous edition flagged exactly this risk: that the Government of India had negotiated nine rounds which might not be the one that concludes the deal. Goyal’s comment is arguably the bigger development, marking a shift from steady procedural progress to an explicit acknowledgment that the talks are stuck for reasons that predate the change of government.
The contrast with Chile, our next story, is telling. Both negotiations have hit roadblocks over market access, yet Chile is working toward an explicit October target while Peru has none. That gap says political continuity may matter as much as resource-access difficulty. A concluded Peru FTA would also be India’s first anywhere in Latin America, with its credibility tied to unlocking momentum with Ecuador. So a stalled negotiation has effects well beyond the bilateral relationship.
What to Look Out for?
Watch who Fujimori names as head of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, and whether India revives the mid-2026 target once she’s sworn in on 28 July. If talks resume around the specific products in dispute, which Goyal didn’t name, it will become clear if the two sides have found a real way through or are just restating old positions.
Chile's CEPA Talks Snag on Salmon and Wine, but Stay on Track for October
What Happened?
On 7 June, negotiations for the India-Chile Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) hit a fairly mundane obstacle: Chile is pushing for maximum market access on gold, salmon, wine, apples, walnuts, and avocados, while India has offered concessions only through tariff quotas or a minimum import price. Officials on both sides say they’re still aiming to conclude the deal by October.
By early June, talks were reported to be roughly 80% complete, with gaps concentrated on critical minerals and the above-mentioned list of sensitive products. Chile is offering concessions on more than 90% of its tariff lines; India is offering cuts on roughly 70%. With Chile’s change of government, President Jose Antonio Kast’s administration inherited the talks. The new government appears to have maintained the priority rather than disrupted it. Chile’s Ambassador to India, Juan Angulo, confirmed both sides are fast-tracking the deal, framing it against India’s trade deficit with Chile: about US$ 1.45 billion in Indian exports against more than US$ 2.5 billion in imports, dominated by copper and gold.
Why does it Matter?
This is the clearest live test of a question our last edition raised about India’s Latin American FTAs generally: is India building genuine sectoral trade architecture, or negotiating conventional tariff deals with a minerals annex bolted on? Chile holds the leverage of scarce, globally demanded copper and lithium, and is using it to extract concessions on comparatively minor exports as the price of opening up its minerals sector.
The comparison with Peru is the more telling part. Chile’s National Lithium Strategy, which restricts new foreign concessions, was flagged in our last edition as the harder negotiating environment. Yet it’s Chile, not Peru, which is moving toward a firm date, suggesting that political continuity despite a change of government matters more than the underlying difficulty with regard to access to resources. If concluded, CEPA would also be a bigger prize than a standalone FTA, bundling digital services, investment facilitation, and critical minerals into one instrument.
What to Look Out for?
October is the single most important date to track in this edition. If it slips, it will signal that India’s Latin American FTA strategy faces the same execution gap our last edition identified in KABIL’s overseas minerals record (next story). Watch whether the critical minerals chapter includes binding investment-protection commitments or stays a framework without teeth, and whether India concedes on Chile’s gold request, a politically sensitive category given its role in India’s own trade deficit.
KABIL's Argentina Lithium Blocks Clear Environmental Hurdle: Intent Converts to Action
What Happened?
On 10 April 2026, Khanij Bidesh India Limited (KABIL), India’s state-backed overseas minerals vehicle, received environmental clearance from the Argentine government to begin deep exploration of five brine lithium blocks spanning roughly 15,703 hectares in Catamarca province, part of South America’s Lithium Triangle. The underlying agreement, signed in January 2024 with the province’s state-owned CAMYEN (Catamarca Minera y Energética Sociedad del Estado), gave KABIL exploration rights; the clearance moves it into an active field-level phase.
KABIL is investing about ₹ 200 crore (roughly US$ 24 million) and plans to open a branch office in Catamarca, India’s first lithium exploration project run by a state-owned company. KABIL’s chief executive said in November 2025 that preliminary geological mapping was already complete. Production, if the blocks prove viable, isn’t expected before 2029.
Why does it Matter?
This is a direct answer to the scepticism our last edition raised about KABIL’s ability to turn framework agreements into actual assets. The negotiations with CAMYEN finally produced an overseas asset after several years of work. This achievement is the clearest evidence of success, even if it remains India’s only functioning overseas lithium asset roughly seven years into KABIL’s mandate.
The gap between exploration and production matters: a 2029 timeline shows how long the road from agreement to output really is, even in a case Indian officials regard as most advanced. Catamarca is also a useful comparison with FTA negotiations discussed in this edition. Unlike Chile’s centralised lithium strategy, Argentina’s provincial control let India secure rights directly through CAMYEN without having to resort to a bilateral trade agreement – a faster route than the FTA-centred approach with Peru and Chile.
What to Look Out for?
The next milestone is whether exploration data shows commercially viable lithium concentrations, which will decide whether the investment will actually turn into a mine. Watch if KABIL treats this provincial-level deal as a template for Brazil or Bolivia, and if the promised Catamarca branch office will signal a long-term presence or just a single remote contract.
Argentina makes the Case for a Bigger India-MERCOSUR Pact as Ties with Brazil Rupture
What Happened?
On 22 June 2026, Argentina’s Ambassador to India, Mariano Caucino, described bilateral relations between the two countries as being at an “exceptional” stage. India, he said, has become Argentina’s sixth-largest economic partner, with bilateral trade more than doubling over five years, from roughly US$ 2.5 billion to about US$ 5.5 billion. Beyond edible oils, he mentioned lithium and energy as the new frontier, and said the existing India-MERCOSUR Preferential Trade Agreement is “too limited,” with all four members broadly agreeing it needs to be expanded. Bolivia is not included here as Bolivia was only an associate member of Mercosur when the PTA was finalized in 2004 and implemented in 2009. The original agreement strictly applied to founding members Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and India, containing no automatic accession clause for third parties or expanding associate states.
Weeks later, the diplomatic backdrop fell apart. Milei’s long-running feud with Brazilian President Lula da Silva, whom he has called an “angry communist” and “corrupt,” flared again in late July when he made fresh remarks about Lula while appearing alongside former president Jair Bolsonaro. Brasilia responded by recalling its ambassador to Buenos Aires for consultations and summoning Argentina’s ambassador to explain the comments, clearly a more formal response than the usual social-media sparring.
Why does it Matter?
Caucino’s comments are the clearest statement yet, from inside MERCOSUR itself, that the bloc sees the current India PTA as insufficient, and they line up with US$ 100 billion ambition. But an expanded India-MERCOSUR PTA needs consensus among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and that is exactly what the Milei-Lula rupture threatens. Brazil, as the bloc’s largest economy, has to sign off on any expansion India negotiates, and a recalled ambassador shows the antagonism has moved from mere rhetoric into the diplomatic machinery.
Milei clashing with Lula isn’t new; he’s done it repeatedly since taking office in December 2023. What’s different is the scale of Brazil’s response at the exact same moment Argentina’s ambassador in New Delhi is building the case for deeper trade integration with India.
What to Look Out for?
Watch if the recall is for a brief period or if it delays the technical dialogues Brazil and India had already agreed to hold on expanding the PTA. This is a reminder that India’s MERCOSUR ambitions, unlike its bilateral tracks with Peru and Chile, depend on a fourth actor’s bloc politics India can’t influence. If Argentina-Brazil relations don’t stabilise, the US$ 100 billion target gets harder to reach through MERCOSUR.
India's US$ 100 bn Latin America Ambition: MERCOSUR Expansion Meets the Follow-through Question
What Happened?
India’s ambitions for Latin America and the Caribbean acquired a new headline number over June and July. At the LAC FIRST (India-Latin America & Caribbean Business & Diplomatic) conference in New Delhi on 25 June, Uruguay’s Ambassador to India and Group of Latin America and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC) coordinator, Alberto Antonio Guani Amarilla, told reporters that bilateral trade, currently around US$ 50 billion, is expected to double to US$ 100 billion by 2030.
Reporting on 5 July filled in the mechanics: India is working to expand its Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with MERCOSUR as the main vehicle for the target. Brazil and India have already adopted electronic certificates of origin, cutting issuance time from 48 hours to around two. Enthusiasm in India showed up at the state level too: Madhya Pradesh hosted a trade forum in Indore in June with ambassadors from 15 Latin American and Caribbean nations, and India joined more than twenty countries at a civil-society summit in Salvador, Brazil in mid-June.
Why does it Matter?
The jump from the US$ 39 billion figure examined in our last edition to a stated US$ 50 billion and a US$ 100 billion target reflects genuine trade growth, but it’s also partly a rhetorical escalation; a target isn’t a policy, and India’s underperformance in the region has consistently been a matter of institutional priority rather than analysis. The previous edition of the newsletter delves deeper into this subject of discussion.
The certificate-of-origin change is a genuinely useful data point precisely because it’s the kind of unglamorous administrative fix our last edition’s shipping story said has been chronically under-resourced. And Madhya Pradesh’s involvement is genuinely new relative to our last edition’s Delhi-centric account, though whether it reflects a real broadening of engagement or a one-off conference isn’t clear yet.
What to Look Out for?
Watch for a sector-by-sector breakdown of how the near-trebling from US$ 39 billion is supposed to happen, and whether the certificate-of-origin system spreads beyond Brazil to Chile and Peru. Watch too if Madhya Pradesh’s forum gets a second edition, or whether any Indian state opens an actual trade office in Latin America; that will be the clearest sign of a durable feature rather than a one-off phenomenon.
A Note on Mexico
Mexico doesn’t have a dedicated story in this edition. Its major recent development, the tariff hikes of up to 50% that Mexico’s Congress approved on trading partners without an FTA, India among them, took effect at the beginning of 2026. There’s been no movement of goods under the India-Mexico trade agreement since, though Indian industry bodies keep pressing New Delhi to open talks. One issue worth flagging: on 23 July, the US announced a fresh 10% Section 301 tariff, effective the next day, on a list that unusually includes both India and Mexico. Whether a shared grievance against Washington creates any new incentive to move faster on their own opening is worth watching, but nothing so far suggests it has.
Check These Out
Recommended further reading on the topics covered this edition:
-
1. India Scours Angola, Venezuela for Crude as Mideast Supply Dries Up (OilPrice.com). How Indian refiners are widening their crude search beyond the Middle East. Read here
-
2. India's Venezuelan Crude Imports Poised to Stay Strong Despite Earthquakes (S&P Global). How the June earthquakes affected, or didn't affect, Indian import volumes. Read here
-
3. A Razor-Thin Victory, a Divided Nation: What Awaits Peru's Next President? (Atlantic Council). The challenges facing Fujimori's incoming administration. Read here
-
4. Chile's Demands on Some 'Sensitive' Items Hold Up CEPA Negotiations (Business Standard). The specific products still under negotiation and both sides' October target. Read here
-
5. India-Chile CEPA Negotiations (2025-2026) (IMPRI). A policy analysis situating the CEPA within India's critical minerals strategy. Read here
-
6. Why Is Javier Milei Trying to Sabotage Argentina's Relations With Brazil? (Naked Capitalism). The late-July rupture between Milei and Lula and its implications for MERCOSUR. Read here
Conclusion
Read together, these six stories suggest India’s engagement in Latin America has entered a phase defined less by urgency and more by the uneven mechanics of follow-through. Venezuela’s oil trade survived its first earthquake largely intact, but the bigger story is how much of India’s diversification is now happening around Venezuela, in Angola, and in a retreat from Iraq, rather than because of it. Peru’s FTA is frozen with no target date and an incoming government yet to show its hand. Chile’s CEPA has kept its October target intact despite its own friction, a divergence from Peru that says as much about political continuity as about resource-access difficulty. KABIL’s Argentina lithium project is the clearest evidence that intent can turn into institutional action even if production is years away. Argentina’s own push for a bigger MERCOSUR pact is a real opportunity, but currently shadowed by a presidential feud neither New Delhi nor Buenos Aires can fix. And the ambition of US$ 100 billion trade with India will only be worth taking seriously once it comes with administrative details, shipping routes, certificate systems, and ratification timelines that have been consistently missing from India’s Latin America rhetoric.
What connects these stories is a single test: not whether India and Latin America want a deeper relationship which is well established but whether either side’s institutions, and in Argentina’s case its own regional relationships, can sustain the follow-through needed to convert that wish into binding commitments. Some can. Others, for now, can’t.
Thank you for reading this edition of Southern Currents. We look forward to continuing this analysis in the months ahead.
Southern Currents | India’s Latin America Newsletter | June–July 2026 | Ananta Centre
