A Distant War, A Direct Impact: How US Attack On Venezuela Affects India's Worldview

New Delhi: The USA's dramatic military action against Venezuela – capped by President Donald Trump’s announcement on Saturday that Nicolas Maduro and his wife have been captured and removed from the country – has sent shockwaves far beyond Latin America.

For India, which has long balanced pragmatic energy ties with Caracas against a commitment to strategic autonomy, the episode marks a pivotal moment that could reshape its engagement with Venezuela, South America and the evolving multipolar world order.

"The United States of America has successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the country," Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social. "This operation was done in conjunction with US Law Enforcement."

For India, a rising power that champions strategic autonomy and the Global South, the crisis raises urgent questions about sovereignty, intervention and how emerging powers navigate a world where force is again being used to redraw political realities. The US strike on Venezuela and the capture of President Maduro have not only upended Caracas but also thrown India's oil diplomacy, South American outreach and broader geopolitical calculations into flux.

India's foreign policy traditionally emphasises respect for sovereignty, non-interference, and peaceful resolution of disputes through international law. A unilateral military intervention by a major power — even if justified by Washington on counter-narcotics or terrorism grounds — challenges these principles.

India and Venezuela share a history of warm relations. There is a similarity of views on major international, political and economic issues. This strong partnership extends beyond bilateral cooperation, as both nations actively collaborate in multilateral forums.

This apart, Venezuela has long been an energy partner for India, especially in supplying heavy crude oil on competitive terms. Although supplies have fluctuated due to sanctions and economic instability, Indian firms have maintained interest in Venezuelan energy assets.

ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) and Corporacion Venezolana del Petroleo (CVP), a subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela, SA (PdVSA), the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company, have a joint venture called Petrolera Indovenezolana SA for the production and exploration of oil in the San Cristóbal field, in which OVL has 40 percent stake, while PDVSA has 60 percent of the remaining stake. The OVL investment in the San Cristóbal project is approximately $200 million.

An international consortium comprising OVL, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Oil India Limited (OIL), Repsol of Spain and Petronas of Malaysia, was declared the winner of an international bidding process in April 2008 to develop a multi‐million-dollar oil project integrated in Carabobo in the Orinoco belt of Venezuela. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has a 15‐year crude supply contract with PDVSA.

According to data shared by the Indian Embassy in Caracas, India-Venezuela bilateral trade stood at $1.175 billion in 2023-24. The main items of India’s exports to Venezuela are mineral fuels and oils and products of their distillation, bituminous substances, pharmaceutical products, cotton, nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances, electrical machinery and equipment, sound recorders and reproducers, television image and sound recorders and reproducers, articles of apparel and clothing accessories and miscellaneous chemical products.

The main items of India’s imports from Venezuela are mineral fuels and oils and products of their distillation, bituminous substances, mineral waxes, iron and steel, aluminium, edible vegetables and certain roots and tubers, copper and articles thereof, lead and articles thereof, zinc and articles thereof, wood and articles of wood, electrical machinery and equipment and parts thereof, sound recorders and reproducers, television image and sound recorders and reproducers, raw hides, skins and leather, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances, edible fruit and nuts, plastic and articles thereof, organic chemicals, miscellaneous chemical products, and articles of iron or steel.

According to Ash Narain Roy, former Director of the New Delhi-based Institute of Social Sciences and an expert on Latin America, the US attack on Venezuela will have implications for major trading partners like India.

"India has been buying oil from Venezuela for a long time on fairly good terms,” Roy told ETV Bharat. "What worries us is that the US is making you follow a Trumpian world order."

He said that the US has been sanctioning Iran, Russia and Venezuela, countries from which India has been majorly importing energy.

“India has been buying a lot of crude oil and reselling,” Roy said. “This is a typical global cop role that the US is playing. The UN has been rendered completely ineffectual.”

Asked what the ouster of Maduro and the possibility of his main opposition rival and last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, María Corina Machado, will mean for India-Venezuela relations, Roy sounded pessimistic.

“Trump would like Machado to be installed in power,” he said. “She can then be played by Trump. But it is for the people of Venezuela to decide by voting who should come to power.”

However, at the same time, Roy said that despite the regime change in Venezuela, India’s ties with countries in Latin and South America broadly remain good.

Describing the US attack on Venezuela as blatant muscle flexing by Washington, he compared it to the Western powers’ “gunboat diplomacy”.

Saurabh Mishra, Research Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, said that when Machado was smuggled to Sweden by a US special forces officer ahead of the Nobel Prize award ceremony last year, it was well anticipated that Washington’s action against Maduro was forthcoming.

However, he added at the same time that if a pro-US leader is installed in power in Venezuela, it will be easier for India to import oil from the South American country after having been weaned away from doing this due to Washington’s sanctions.

To sum up, the US military strike on Venezuela and the capture of President Maduro represent a watershed moment in 21st-century geopolitics. Till the time of filing of this report, there has been no official statement by India on this development.

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