Venezuela slipped down India’s trade map long before Maduro’s fall

india's trade with Venezuela had already declined during Maduro's regime

• India's trade with Venezuela has sharply declined since 2013.
• Venezuela's share of India's Latin American imports dropped below 1% by 2021.
• Venezuelan regime change unlikely to affect India's trade position.

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Venezuela’s importance as a trading partner to India had been steadily slipping well before the dramatic political developments over the weekend. Both exports to and imports from the country have declined as a share of India’s trade with the Latin America–Caribbean region since Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013, marking a break from the expansion of the previous decade.

In the early 2000s, Venezuela was a small but growing market for Indian goods. Between 2003 and 2012, India’s exports to the oil-rich nation climbed steadily, peaking at over $250 million. During this period, Venezuela accounted for roughly 2–4 percent of India’s total exports to the Latin America–Caribbean region, supported by a relatively broad-based basket of chemicals, textiles, machinery and consumer goods.

That trajectory began to reverse after 2013. Over the following decade, Venezuela’s share of India’s regional exports steadily eroded, slipping closer to 1 percent. The decline reflected mounting policy uncertainty, deepening economic instability, and the impact of international sanctions, which weakened commercial ties.

The contraction became even more pronounced on the import side. Venezuela was once among India’s most important suppliers in Latin America, almost entirely due to crude oil. In 2012–13, it accounted for more than 30 percent of India’s imports from the region, making it a critical energy partner. That dependence collapsed rapidly after 2014. By 2021, India’s imports from Venezuela had fallen to negligible levels, pushing its share of India’s Latin American imports well below 1 percent, as sanctions threatened Venezuela’s energy exports. A partial rebound in 2024, again driven by fuel purchases, did little to alter the longer-term downward trend.

A closer look at the composition of trade shows how narrow and fragile the relationship became over time. On the export side, chemicals remained the single largest category through much of the period, but shipments of textiles, capital goods and transport equipment weakened sharply after 2014.

Imports tell an even starker story of concentration and collapse. Fuel, particularly crude oil, dominated India’s imports from Venezuela almost entirely during peak years. Once oil flows dried up under sanctions, overall imports fell precipitously. Other categories, including metals, chemicals or intermediate goods, remained marginal and never came close to compensating for the loss of energy trade.

A regime change in Venezuela comes at a time when India’s commercial exposure to the country is already a fraction of what it once was. From New Delhi’s standpoint, Venezuela had become an increasingly unfavourable trade partner well before the current political shock.

Any political reset in Caracas is therefore unlikely to disrupt India’s current trade position.