 "Brazil’s Lula da Silva in India: AI summit, bilateral talks with PM Modi… What to expect?")
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has arrived in India for a state visit from February 18-22. His itinerary includes a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attending the India AI Impact Summit in Delhi.
The Brazilian president is being accompanied by a business delegation of 260 companies. This is Lula’s sixth visit to India. He last came to Delhi for the G20 Summit in September 2023.
Here’s why the trip matters.
Brazil’s Lula in India
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is in India for a state visit, bringing with him the largest-ever Brazilian delegation to the South Asian country. He is accompanied by about 14 ministers and a large delegation of top CEOs of Brazilian companies. The CEOs will attend a Business Forum during the visit, reflecting the increasing trade and commercial engagements between the two countries.
The Brazilian president will hold a bilateral meeting with PM Modi on February 21 to review the “entire gamut of bilateral relations”, as per a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement.
Modi and Lula will also discuss “regional and global issues of mutual interest, including cooperation in multilateral fora, reformed multilateralism, global governance and issues concerning the Global South,” the MEA said.
Modi and Lula last went into a huddle in Brasilia in July 2025, when they discussed expanding bilateral trade between the two countries. This was the first state visit by an Indian prime minister to Brazil in the last 57 years.
During his trip, Lula will participate in the AI Impact Summit on February 19 and 20.
President Droupadi Murmu is expected to host a banquet in Lula’s honour. Vice President CP Radhakrishnan and External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar will also call upon the Brazilian president.
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View AllWhat’s the agenda?
Trade is the foremost agenda as Lula visits India. The two countries reported a bilateral trade of $15.21 billion in 2025, a 25 per cent jump from $12.20 billion in 2024.
Brazil has been making efforts to enhance trade with India since the 2025 bilateral meeting between Modi and Lula. Speaking to The Hindu, Jorge Viana, head of the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex Brazil), said that Lula asked him last year to come up with a delegation in line with his aim to expand commercial ties with India.
“In Delhi, the President will participate in the Artificial Intelligence summit, but we are also organising a huge business meeting in collaboration with our Foreign Ministry. Apex is also opening an office in Delhi as we see India, the most populous nation, as one of the economies with the greatest potential for growth,” Viana said. “Till last year, India was our 10th biggest trading partner, but now in recent months it has been competing to be the fifth. It could become the third biggest.”
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, @LulaOficial has arrived in New Delhi on a State Visit.
— Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) February 18, 2026
He was warmly received by Minister of State @PmargheritaBJP.
During his visit, President Lula will be participating in the India–AI Impact Summit. PM @narendramodi will also… pic.twitter.com/VF3WZ7UQuJ
The Mercosur-India free trade agreement (FTA) is also likely to feature in talks during Lula’s visit. Mercosur is the South American trade bloc, of which Brazil is a part.
The trade deal could widen the scope of tariff concessions and product coverage, benefitting exporters on both sides.
The Brazilian president’s trip is expected to result in various agreements between the two countries, with a boost to India’s pharmaceutical exports and the civil aviation sector.
New Delhi and Brasilia may sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in the critical minerals sector, reported Economic Times (ET). India is seeking to tap into the Latin American country’s huge deposits.
Brazil’s envoy to India, Kenneth H da Nobrega, told The Hindu that Embraer SA’s entry into the Indian market could be announced during Lula’s visit. Last month, Adani Group signed an MoU with the Brazilian aircraft manufacturing firm to set up a regional transport aircraft venture in India.
An MoU related to health can also be signed between the two sides. Brazil’s public health care system requires large quantities of medicines, which Nobrega told ET that Indian exporters are “well-poised” to supply due to competitive pricing.
Brazil’s envoy to India also said that the two countries want to deepen people-to-people ties. With this aim, the South American country is expected to announce a 10-year multiple-entry visa system for Indian tourists.
Agriculture will also be a top agenda item during the talks. Brazil is reportedly expected to offer technical cooperation in family farming. A representative from Embrapa, Brazil’s agricultural research agency, is among the delegation accompanying Lula.
Why Lula’s India trip matters
Brazil President Lula’s India visit will help in bolstering the strategic partnership and deepen cooperation across bilateral, regional and global platforms between the two countries, according to MEA.
The trip comes when the Latin American country is seeking to lessen its economic reliance on the United States and China while strengthening engagement with emerging economies like India, reported Brasil 247.
Officials at Brazil’s presidential palace described the visit as one of the largest overseas missions of Lula’s government.
Celso Amorim, Lula’s principal foreign policy adviser, said the Brazilian president’s visit offers an opportunity to collaborate in strategic sectors. “Cooperation between Brazil and India can be very broad, but I would highlight above all two domains: technology and defence,” he told The Hindu.
“Brazil and India have developed, each in its own way, very important aspects of biotechnology too. In space science, India has given us a great example of how it is possible to achieve great accomplishments without necessarily resorting to the technology of the rich countries,” Amorim added.
Brazil is also eyeing India’s presidency of Brics in 2026 to further move forward the conversation on global governance and multilateralism. The adviser said that the grouping must debate on reforming the global order to reflect the interests of the Global South.
“It is important that the Indian presidency of Brics leads this discussion about the current world order and how to change it. We all know the struggle there is for the expansion of the UN Security Council. A world without rules is a very difficult world. India and Brazil have always worked with rules — the rules that they helped to build and that benefited us. And this is only possible within a balanced multilateral system, which Brics has to help strengthen and rebuild,” the adviser to Lula said.
With inputs from agencies
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