Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez dialled Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday to discuss the deepening of bilateral cooperation, including in energy, trade and investment.
This was the first contact from the Venezuelan side with India at the leadership level since the US launched a military strike on Caracas on January 3 and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro on drug, weapons and narco-terrorism charges.
“Spoke with Acting President of Venezuela, Ms. Delcy Rodríguez. We agreed to further deepen and expand our bilateral partnership in all areas, with a shared vision of taking India-Venezuela relations to new heights in the years ahead,” Modi said on social media after the phone call.
Modi received a call from Rodríguez and the two leaders agreed to “further expand and deepen the India-Venezuela partnership in all areas, including trade and investment, energy, digital technology, health, agriculture and people-to-people ties”, the external affairs ministry said in a readout.
The leaders also exchanged views on regional and global issues and “underscored the importance of their close cooperation for the Global South”, the readout said.
Venezuela was once India’s seventh-largest source of crude oil until imports tapered amid U.S. sanctions on the South American country. Indian refiners stopped buying Venezuelan oil last year after the US announced a 25% tariff on countries buying crude from the South American nation.
In 2024, some Indian refiners obtained approval from US authorities to purchase oil from Venezuela, but these imports ended last year.
The Trump administration has recently indicated it could allow India to buy Venezuelan oil under a new US-controlled framework. However, Indian refiners are being offered only small volumes of Venezuelan oil, as most of the supply is heading to the US.