External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s recent visit to four South and Central American countries has evoked both interest and enthusiasm in the international community regarding India’s role in the region. Its relatively weak diplomatic and trade ties with Latin America, compared with China’s, are often taken as a sign that the region is low down in India’s strategic and economic priorities.
Jaishankar’s high-level visit, though, has signalled India’s emergence as a rational and independent voice within the G20 and other international groupings that can help channel the voices of the world’s developing economies, including Latin America. However, this has to be followed by sustained and concrete engagement with these countries in three key areas: trade and investment, digital technologies, and climate action.
The Raisina Dialogue held in New Delhi in March 2023 provided a forum where officials, academics, and leaders from around the world, including Latin America, met to discuss global governance issues. Amid discussions on challenges faced by technologically underdeveloped countries, the rising cost of living crisis, and the disruption of global supply chains due to the Ukraine war, there were a few thin glimmers of optimism. They were the commitment to a new multilateralism that prioritises dialogue and respect for all nations, something that India is championing both within the G20 and outside of it.
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India’s diplomacy game
Latin America appreciates India’s independent foreign policy, non-aligned outlook, and New Delhi’s leadership of the developing economies. India is, simultaneously, a part of the Quad along with the US, Australia, and Japan; the BRICS, which includes superpowers such as Russia and China; the founder of I2U2 (the India-Israel-US-UAE alliance); and various other trilateral partnerships.
This diplomatic balance offers several lessons for the international community, especially countries like Mexico. To address its strategic and development challenges, India must work toward strengthening regional blocs, or, at the very least, reinforce bilateral relations. Within the limits of their capabilities, Latin American countries can assume new responsibilities and promote diverse solutions to the problems they face, with India as a strong and dependable partner.
From a Latin American perspective, India’s new position as a leader of emerging economies has manifested itself in recent times. The Narendra Modi government helped Sri Lanka in its moment of political and economic crisis in 2022, cementing its role as a regional power in South Asia, comparable to Mexico in Central and Brazil in South America. During the Covid-19 pandemic, India supported numerous countries through the distribution of vaccines in the absence of global cooperation. It has also resisted calls to choose sides in the ongoing conflict in Europe and continues to engage with its neighbours both in the economic and political spheres. India has reaffirmed its commitment to multilateralism at a time when multilateralism itself is in a crisis.
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Now boost relations with Latin America
The weakening of the historically dominant US influence from Latin America opens spaces for new and emerging leaderships. India’s unique diplomatic position can be translated into a new partnership with Latin America in four ways.
First, India can propose a “BIMA Initiative”, bringing together Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina, during the September G20 summit whose presidency India will hand over to Brazil. BIMA will provide India a forum for broader engagement with the region — Amazon basin (Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru) with Brazil; Central America with Mexico; and the Southern Cone (Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay) with Argentina.
Second, the partnership can shift the focus of current economic ties from extraction of crude oil, minerals, and agricultural products, which is causing havoc to both the environment and communities, to investment in health security (essential medicines and vaccines), skilled workforce, and new energy such as solar and hydrogen power where India has taken the lead.
Third, the India-Latin America partnership can work toward building digital public infrastructure, improving financial inclusion, and reducing the cost of access to data, which is critical for engagement with the digital economy, and enhancing cybersecurity and governance of new technologies such as artificial intelligence that will profoundly affect countries in the region.
Finally, the partnership can propose new frameworks for climate finance led by the emerging economies of the world. The first step has to be the creation of a trust fund within the US-based Inter-American Development Bank to support countries of the Amazon basin and Central America to curb deforestation, protect biodiversity, and identify sustainable economic opportunities for local communities. It can also take forward Mexico’s sustainable taxonomy, which seeks to encourage investment in economic activities to protect the environment and reduce social and gender gaps.
There is no better way to demonstrate the “One Earth, One Family, One Future” commitment — the guiding principle of India’s G20 presidency — than a deep, lasting, and transformative relationship with Latin America.
José Barrera is the Coordinating Advisor of Mexico’s Senate Foreign Affairs Commission. Anit Mukherjee is Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation America. He tweets @anitnath. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)