With eyes on trade deals and reform in global governance, Lula heads to India with 260 firms

Brazil is preparing for Carnival this weekend, with the country literally coming to a standstill, but intensive preparations are underway in Brazil for President Lula da Silva’s visit to India with a business delegation of 260 companies.

Brazil’s largest ever delegation to India marks the culmination of the highest level of interaction between the two countries in the last few years in a challenging geopolitical scenario. This could also be the Brazilian leader’s last major foreign involvement before Brazil enters election mode for presidential elections in October this year.

Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bilateral meeting with Lula in Brasilia in July 2025, where they discussed expanding bilateral trade, the Brazilian leader’s trip to New Delhi between February 19-21 is given high priority by the Brazilian government.

Celso Amorim, who serves as Lula’s chief foreign policy adviser, sees the visit as an opportunity for cooperation in strategic sectors between the two emerging economies. “Cooperation between Brazil and India can be very far-reaching, but above all I would like to highlight two areas: technology and defence,” Mr. Amorim said. Hindu.

“Brazil and India, in their own ways, have developed very important aspects of biotechnology. India has given us a great example of how it is possible to achieve great success in space science without necessarily resorting to the technology of rich countries,” said Mr. Amorim, who previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense respectively under presidents Lula and Dilma Rouseff.

The Brazilian side has been working to strengthen trade ties with India since the bilateral meeting in 2025. Jorge Viana, president of the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex Brazil), said: Hindu He said Lula asked him last year to form a delegation as part of efforts to expand trade ties with India.

“In Delhi, the President will attend the Artificial Intelligence summit, but we are also organizing a large business meeting in cooperation with our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Apex is also opening an office in Delhi, as we see India, the most populous country, as one of the economies with the highest growth potential,” Viana said. Hindu from Brazil. “Until last year, India was our 10th largest trading partner, but in recent months it has been racing to become fifth. It could become our third largest trading partner.”

In 2025, Brazil purchased Indian products worth 8.5 billion dollars, while Brazil’s exports to India reached a total of 7 billion dollars, primarily in the oil, sugar, molasses, fat and vegetable oils and iron ore sectors. But Mr. Viana says Brazilians now want to diversify their exports to India.

“260 Brazilian companies are attending the event organized by Apex in Delhi. We have representatives from all strategic sectors. We are taking a lot of people from the healthcare field, including our Minister of Health, because India is a major pharmaceutical supplier to Brazil. We also have major ethanol and biofuel companies on board because there is an agreement between Brazil and India in the region.” He added that there could be an important announcement regarding the arrival of Brazilian aircraft manufacturing company Embraer in India.

In an environment where energy security and sustainability are reshaping global harmonies and threatening to disrupt the current world order amid intensifying geopolitical competition, the Brazilian side is keen to deepen relations with India in these areas. “We must work together for the energy transition, remembering that we still have a large oil trade. We cannot give up oil from one hour to the next, but we must work to make the world more sustainable. And not only economically and energy-wise, but also politically sustainable,” says Mr. Amorim, who has been one of Brazil’s most influential voices in international affairs for two decades.

While trade may dominate Lula’s agenda in Delhi, Brazil is also eyeing India’s BRICS presidency in 2026 to further advance the debate on threatened global governance and multilateralism. According to Mr. Amorim, the group should discuss reforming the global order to reflect the interests of the Global South.

“It is important that the Indian presidency of BRICS leads this discussion about the current world order and how to change it. We all know the struggle to expand the UN Security Council. A world without rules is a very difficult world. India and Brazil have always worked by rules; rules that they helped build and that have benefited us. And this is possible only within a balanced multilateral system that should help strengthen and rebuild BRICS,” Lula’s advisor said.

With US President Donald Trump releasing the rulebook for international trade, emerging economies have begun exploring more trade with other countries and blocs. Just a few weeks before India signed the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU, Mercosur, the South American trade bloc of which Brazil is a part, also completed its agreement with the Europeans. Now, the long-pending Mercosur-India FTA may also be subject to serious discussions during Lula’s visit.

Mr. Viana, a member of Lula’s Workers’ Party and a close confidant of the President, said, “The tension that the US is experiencing with the whole world has created opportunities for countries like Brazil, which have no disputes with anyone. The Mercosur-EU agreement is going well. Although it is a multilateral agreement and contains many tariffs, we will discuss it with the Indian side.”

Brazil is yet to agree a trade deal with the US But with the largest business delegation heading to India in his third-term presidency, the Brazilian leader plans to strike big deals with a fellow BRICS member before returning home after Carnival is over.

It was published – 11 February 2026 16:21 IST