PM Modi in Brazil: Focus on India-Brazil special partnership, Trump tariffs | Likely topics on agenda

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Brazil for a four-day visit during which he will attend BRICS Summit. | Photo Credit: X/@narendramodi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Brazil on Sunday (Saturday evening local time). During his visit, PM Modi will attend the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro on July 6 and 7, followed by a state visit, for which he will travel to Brasilia. It will be the first bilateral visit to the country by an Indian prime minister in nearly six decades.

This is the fourth leg of his five-nation visit. He arrived in Brazil from Argentina, where he held wide-ranging talks with President Javier Milei and agreed to diversify two-way trade and ramp up cooperation in defence, critical minerals, pharmaceutical, energy and mining sectors.

Analysts and diplomats believe that pressing topics like Israel's attack on Iran, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and trade tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump are expected to be handled with caution. This observation is clearly based the lack of cohesion in an enlarged BRICS, which doubled in size last year.

The BRICS summit 2025 will be held without the presence of the two big bloc leaders. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not attend the meeting this year. However, the annual summit has a packed agenda.

Key Agenda on table: Strengthening South-South partnership

The BRICS 2025 summit is being held against the backdrop of a fracturing international order where the return of multilateralism is increasingly questioned. It is in this context the bilateral convergences (especially India-Brazil) will evoke renewed interest. Brazil today matters to New Delhi not only as the largest economy of Latin America but also as a like-minded democratic country with whom India wishes to ‘co-write’ the rules of international governance. This convergence has been reflected also in the growing frequency and intensity of high-level interaction between the two countries. In the midst of an expanded BRICS and growing challenges to the international system, Brazil has proved an invaluable interlocutor of India in the BRICS and the UN and in voicing the hopes and ambitions of the Global South.

Sweeping Trump tariffs

BRICS leaders’ meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday is also expected to decry US President Donald Trump's "indiscriminate" trade tariffs, saying they are illegal and risk hurting the global economy. Emerging nations, which represent about half the world's population and 40 percent of global economic output, have united over "serious concerns" about US import tariffs, according to a draft summit statement reported by AFP.

"We voice serious concerns about the rise of unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures which distort trade and are inconsistent with WTO (World Trade Organization) rules," AFP quoted the draft text.

A joint statement decrying terrorism

PM Narendra Modi’s first priority is that the BRICS bloc of nations calls out terrorism in clear terms. The BRICS declaration in Rio de Janeiro is expected to condemn the Pahalgam terror attack, which took 26 lives, mostly of tourists, in the Jammu and Kashmir resort town of Pahalgam on April 22. This is in continuity to New Delhi's big effort to highlight the the damage caused by terrorism in global stage and elicit a response from the world community. Immediately post Operation Sindoor, India sent a multi-party delegation to various state capital to drive home India's response and elicit global condemnation on terrorism and terrorist activities.