India-Brazil Ties: A Quiet Strategic Partnership Reshaping The Global South

Defence Industry Partnership

Brazil is pitching its Embraer KC-390 Millennium airlifter to meet the Indian Air Force's requirement for up to 80 medium transport aircraft. Embraer is emerging as a global aerospace brand, and KC-390 Millennium is the best in the category, edging past its competitors from the West. To support the potential C-390 fleet, Embraer has partnered with the Mahindra Group to establish a Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) facility in India. Embraer has also secured a raw materials supply agreement with Bharat Forge.

This is a partnership in which trust will not be breached, unlike some of India’s partners in North America.

Defence is an integral pillar of the India-Brazil Strategic Partnership, and there is a huge potential for co-design and co-production by linking India’s Atmanirbhar Bharat with Brazil’s defence industrial base. In this context, the trilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Mazagaon Dock Ltd and both Navies for the maintenance of Scorpene Class submarines and other military ships is also significant. The two countries have also recognised the role of cooperation in strengthening UN Peacekeeping Operations. 

India and Brazil have now agreed to enhance cooperation in strategic areas, including the peaceful use of outer space, and maritime cooperation. They will explore opportunities in satellite design, launch vehicles, and data sharing between their respective space agencies and academia to deepen research and space exploration. There is also a growing commitment to building cyber capabilities and improving cybersecurity posture.

India-Brazil Cyber Dialogue

The first India-Brazil Cyber Dialogue in Brasilia, in November 2025, saw discussions on cyber governance, data protection, and the fight against cybercrime. 

Despite not being a victim of international terror, Brazil has backed India’s call for a decisive and concerted international effort to combat terrorism in a comprehensive and sustained manner, and in accordance with international law. The two sides are committed to cooperating in preventing and combating terrorism, including its financing and recruitment, especially through online radicalisation. In 2025, Brazil, in fact, signed a counterterror pact with India. This is an important mechanism for the strengthening of cooperation to counter transnational organised crime.

Energy And Mining Partnership

That India and Brazil are leveraging their vast agricultural resources and existing infrastructure to pioneer new clean energy solutions is a little-known fact. India and Brazil, as two leading biofuel producers, are well-positioned to collaborate on the production and use of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) by leveraging their existing ethanol and biodiesel production infrastructure, growing aviation market, and vast feedstock potential, including their agricultural resources. This has gained in salience given energy supply chain disruptions.

In the field of traditional energy, bilateral collaboration in the field of oil and gas is deepening, given that Brazil is one of the world’s biggest producers of crude oil. There is a deeper engagement of oil and gas companies from both sides to promote trade, investments, and cooperation in deepwater and ultra-deepwater exploration blocks. There is a need to work towards mutual investments in the sector in both countries and to identify additional opportunities for collaboration, including in emissions reduction and carbon capture technologies. Companies from both sides are working to achieve early production and tangible returns from joint projects.

Yet another little-known fact is that Brazil is second to China in possession of rare earths, and is looking for investments from abroad. There is initial dialogue in the areas of rare earth minerals and critical minerals essential for economic development and clean energy technologies. An MoU was signed on the occasion of the visit of the Brazilian President to India in February on cooperation in rare earth elements and critical minerals, strengthening the supply value chains and global competitiveness in mineral exploration, mining, processing, recycling, and refining of critical minerals. 

Multipolarity And Multilateralism    

Multipolarity and multilateralism are key pillars of the foreign policies of both India and Brazil. India and Brazil, both emerging global powers, have stressed the imperative need for comprehensive reform of the UN, particularly the UNSC, including its expansion in both permanent and non-permanent membership categories. The two sides are committed to mutual support for the permanent membership of their countries in an expanded UNSC. Brazil has extended full support to India’s BRICS Presidency amid the global challenges, particularly in West Asia. 

There is now a need, more than ever, for a revitalised multilateralism to adequately address contemporary global challenges of the 21st Century. India and Brazil are committed to reforming and improving global governance by promoting a more just, representative, responsive, effective, democratic, and accountable international and multilateral system that increases the representation of developing countries in the global decision-making bodies for the benefit of the Global South. 

(The writer is a commentator on geopolitics. Views expressed are personal.)