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India-Venezuela Relations Gain Renewed Energy

The U.S., not Delhi or Caracas, announced Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez’s visit to India last week. The U.S. role in pushing the oil trade is hard to ignore.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodriquez at a meeting in Hyderabad House in New Delhi on June 4, 2026, during the latter’s June 3-7 visit to India.

The visit of Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez to India from June 3-6 did not produce any agreements. However, it laid the foundation for cooperation in energy, mining – gold, diamonds and critical minerals – as well as animal husbandry, transportation, automotive and pharmaceuticals between the two countries.

Talks between India and Venezuela were “very business-like, very substantive,” Rudrendra Tandon, secretary (East) in India’s Ministry for External Affairs, told reporters. The “message that came across very clearly from the Venezuelan side is that they are open for business,” Tandon said. Consequently, “there are great opportunities for India.”

Rodríguez’s visit set off a controversy even before she set foot in India. The announcement of her visit came not from New Delhi or Caracas but Washington. On May 21, ahead of his visit to India, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio disclosed Rodríguez’s planned trip to India, presenting Venezuelan crude oil and American energy supplies to meet India’s future energy needs.

At a time when India is under immense pressure from the Donald Trump administration to halt its purchases of Russian crude, Rubio’s announcement was understandably seen as yet another instance of India’s decisions regarding its energy security being made not in Delhi but in the U.S.

India imports 88 percent of its energy needs and has been seeking to diversify its sourcing of oil and gas over the decades. Until last year, India’s major suppliers were Russia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

But Delhi’s purchase of discounted Russian crude since 2022 prompted the Trump administration to impose an additional 25 percent punitive tariffs on India. While India did reduce its oil purchases from Russia to step up oil imports Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, its energy security ran into trouble again, with the U.S.-Israel war on Iran leading to the Strait of Hormuz crisis, which has in turn impacted India’s oil and gas imports from the Persian Gulf.

Venezuela has among the largest oil reserves in the world. With India importing most of its oil requirements and looking to new sources, it is eyeing Venezuelan oil.  India sees “a perfect complementarity” in the bilateral relationship, Tandon said.

The India-Venezuela relationship is not new. It goes back decades, with hydrocarbons fueling the bilateral trade. In 2012, India raced ahead of China to emerge as the largest Asian importer of Venezuelan crude oil. U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan economy, first imposed in 2005, forced India to cut its purchase of Venezuelan crude in 2019-2020, and then again in 2025 under pressure from the first and current Trump administrations.

Following its removal of Nicolas Maduro from power as Venezuelan president, the Trump administration’s taking control of Venezuela’s oil industry and the lifting of economic sanctions on Venezuela,........

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